Trump Doubles Down On Canada… They Are In Even Worse Shape Than We Thought

Anyone who took Trump’s statements about Canada as merely overheated bluster will have to rethink their assessment of him after his latest Oval Office statements.

In one of his classic ‘allow me to unconfuse you’ moments, Trump spells out exactly what he meant when he made his most provocative statements about Canada being absorbed into the United States.

“I’m not going to bend at all.”

‘Canada only works as a state’, he says.

Trump: “Canada Should Be a U.S. State – We Don’t Need Them, They Need Us!”

Trump: “Look, We’ve been ripped off for years, and we’re not gonna be ripped off anymore. No. I’m not gonna bend at all—aluminum, steel, cars—we’re not gonna bend. We’ve been ripped off as a country for… pic.twitter.com/hrvFPgAT1S

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) March 13, 2025

He’s even talking up how great it would be as a state. But the flip side of that coin is simple: Canada, as it is currently being run, cannot continue to exist without being propped up by sales to US markets.

Sure, that’s part of the argument. So is the argument that Canadians have the social programs they like to brag about only because they are standing under the protective umbrella of the US military who has been protecting them through the Cold War.

Without the access they have to US markets, their economy would be in the toilet. That’s the REAL reason Canadians are getting so uppity since Trump came to office. But it’s worse than that.

There have been recent stories detailing the Canadian military as being in dire shape, not only inadequate for cooperative multi-nation exercises with, say, NATO allies (a long-standing problem), but also in the ability to provide the most basic notion of national defence.

I recently had a conversation with Lt.-Gen. Michel Maisonneuve (ret.), and what he told me about Canada’s military was nothing short of alarming. He didn’t mince words—our armed forces are in dire straits. If we don’t act now, Canada will not only be unable to defend itself, but it will cease to be taken seriously by our allies, many of whom are already losing patience with our military decline.

Maisonneuve has seen firsthand what a functioning military looks like. He has served at the highest levels, working alongside our allies in NATO, and he knows exactly what Canada is failing to do. “We are no longer at the table when major defence decisions are made,” he told me. “The Americans don’t ask us what we think anymore because they know we can’t contribute.” That is a stunning indictment of where we now stand—a country that was once respected for its ability to punch above its weight militarily has been reduced to an afterthought.

The problem, as Maisonneuve laid out, is both simple and staggering: Canada doesn’t take its defence seriously anymore. The government has allowed our forces to wither. The Air Force is still flying CF-18s from the 1980s because the long-delayed F-35 procurement is years behind schedule. The Navy, once a competent maritime force, is barely functional, with no operational submarines and a fleet that is nowhere near what is needed to patrol our vast coastlines. Meanwhile, the Army is struggling to recruit and retain soldiers, leaving its numbers dangerously low. “We have an Army in name only,” Maisonneuve said. “If we were called upon tomorrow to deploy a fully operational combat force, we couldn’t do it.” — SaskToday

Other stories here:

Canada’s Army Is Slowly Falling Apart — “19FortyFive”, January 2005

State of Canadian Armed Forces’ combat readiness growing worse, government report warns — Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, March 2024

If a country lacks any means of defending its own borders against a serious threat… is it really a country in any meaningful sense of the word?

It’s one thing for Canada to stand and assert how strong and independent it is as a nation. But demonstrating there is any truth to back up those claims? That’s another question entirely.