Trump's Canada Claims: A View from Britain
Canada occupies a somewhat special position between the US and Britain. Modern Canada used to be a part of British America, and it was created out of the provinces which didn’t join the American Revolutionary War on the Patriots’ side. This separation triggered the development of a separate Canadian identity, but geography and economy soon started to push Canada towards its Southern (and Western) neighbor. Ottawa’s main trade partners are the US, not Britain. Its most important trade deal is the free trade agreement with the US and Mexico (USMCA, formerly NAFTA), and Emmanuel Todd went so far as to ask himself whether Canada is actually an internal component of the American economy. But, at the same time, its deep-rooted ties with Britain are still relevant to understand the country.
Canada’s ties to Britain through the Commonwealth may sound like the relics of a bygone era. The country has long ceased to be a mere settlement colony: the 1931 Statute of Westminster gave it an equal status to the United Kingdom within the British Empire, and the 1982 Patriation Act removed any possibility for the UK Parliament to legislate for Canada. Still, unlike most former British colonies (but like its other former settlement colonies, minus South Africa and—of course—the US), Canada remains a Commonwealth Realm, with Charles III as its king and a Governor-General representing the monarch.
Having the British monarch as a head of state is more than just parades, pageantry and gossip about the Royal Family. Canada’s current Prime Minister Mark Carney, for instance, has been the director of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, and Governors-General have occasionally played a political role in the Commonwealth Realms, as shown by the 1975 Australian Constitutional Crisis.
Canada’s importance to Britain is certainly not limited to the residual Commonwealth ties, or to their shared Anglo-Saxon heritage (although Canada has two other internal nations, namely the Quebecois and the Inuit ones). Canada and Britain are both NATO members, their intelligence agencies collaborate within the Five Eyes alliance, and Ottawa has expressed interest in joining the AUKUS defense pact.
London and Ottawa are not just allies. Canada is de facto an offspring of Britain, and the aforementioned Commonwealth ties make them somehow part of a family. Therefore, while the times when the holder of a Canadian passport was a British subject are gone, Trump’s plans of making Canada a US state and the talks between US officials and Alberta separatists—whose main party, incidentally, changed its name to Republican Party of Alberta on February 10, 2025—are a matter of concern for Britain.
Henceforth, we should not be surprised if Trump’s appetites for Canada have somehow resounded in Britain. King Charles III showed apparently no reaction, with a spokesman from Buckingham Palace stating that “this would be a matter for the Canadian government, on whose advice the King acts.” But his message for the 60th anniversary of the Canadian flag in February 2025, where he stated that the Maple Leaf “has become internationally recognized as a symbol of a proud, resilient and compassionate country,” has been interpreted as the sign that the King is fully aware of what is going on. Also during Mark Carney’s inauguration as Prime Minister, the King expressed his support for Canada in a number of subtle ways, such as dressing in Canadian colors and presenting a ceremonial sword to the representatives of the Senate. In Britain and the Commonwealth Realms, the monarch reigns but does not rule and it works mostly behind the scenes: so, while a reddish tie does not resound as loud as a “Hands off Canada” statement, these small signs cannot be overlooked either.
British Political Class and Canada
The political class was also not indifferent to these claims, although their reaction has been not as vocal as someone would expect. The British Foreign Secretary David Lammy stated that “Canada is a proud, strong, sovereign nation” and “will continue to be a sovereign nation,” but at the same time he added that “this is a moment for unity” when openly asked about Trump’s statements.
The leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage defined Trump’s claims as “bizarre,” adding that they helped the Liberal Party to win an election which was supposed to be an easy win for the Conservatives just a few weeks before. Daniel Hannan, a prominent member of the Conservative Party now in the House of Lords, stated that the only three nations Britain can trust are the other three main Commonwealth realms (Canada, Australia and New Zealand), rather than the US. But the most vocal party has been the Liberal Democrats, whose leader Ed Davey asked Starmer “to do more to show publicly that we support Canada.”
The Lib Dems have been the most consistent supporters of Canada in the British political scene. While most of the political class and the King himself limited themselves to pay lip service to the support of their Commonwealth partner, Davey didn’t limit himself to symbolic gestures, such as visiting a Canadian-themed pub in central London, but he relaunched CANZUK, a planned supranational union between the four main Commonwealth Realms. The adoption of CANZUK by the Lib Dems is probably the main consequence of Trump’s claims on Canada in Britain.
This is somehow remarkable if we consider the enormous ideological gap between the Liberal Democratic Party and the environments where CANZUK was conceived. The former is indeed a socially liberal, staunchly pro-European party, which consistently advocated for a referendum on any Brexit deal with the clear aim of keeping Britain within the EU. Rejoining the EU is still a long-term objective of the party. CANZUK, on the other hand, was born in Euroskeptic, conservative and somehow identitarian environments. Still, if we scratch beneath the surface, the CANZUK project is clearly compatible with liberal values. Liberal interventionism, free trade, Western values and the opposition to countries such as Russia, China and Iran are frequently mentioned by its promoters as core values. This could make Davey’s embrace of CANZUK not merely a tactical tool in opposition to Trump’s US, but a more permanent fixture in the British political panorama.
Future Developments
If CANZUK were ever to be done, it would have a British lead and a Canadian core. While the role of Britain is self-evident, being the homeland of Anglo-Saxon culture, the common law, the monarchy and as the main economic and military powerhouse of the CANZUK countries, we should open an America-centered world map in order to understand Canada’s potential as a co-leader. Given its strategic position between the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Arctic Oceans, Canada is the only country from where it’s possible to reach the other three main Commonwealth realms through the open ocean, without passing through chokepoints. For the same reason, the Vancouver Airport is the only one with direct flights to the main airports of the other three CANZUK countries (London-Heathrow, Sydney and Auckland). Therefore, we should not be surprised if the CANZUK International NGO is Vancouver-based, rather than London-based. Should CANZUK become an international organization, its vital institutions would likely be based in Vancouver or in some other main Canadian city.
This outcome, nevertheless, cannot be taken for granted. Canada’s interest is self-evident and both the Conservative and the Liberal Party support CANZUK: the leader of the former Pierre Poilievre recently embarked on a trip to London also in order to promote the benefits of a closer cooperation with the other three main Commonwealth realms. But Canada’s interest in using Britain as a counterweight to the US is greater than Britain’s interest in using Canada as a counterweight to Washington. For Daniel Hannan, Trump’s re-election has made the case for CANZUK more urgent. But, in spite of this, such an organization is unlikely to see the light in the near future. Almost nobody is against CANZUK in principle, and according to a recent poll 70% of Britons support the project. But, at the same time, the establishment of such an organization requires a strong political will which is currently lacking.
Among Britain’s foreign policy priorities, after all, Canada and the Commonwealth as a whole come third after the US and the European continent. Moreover, Britain’s traditional strategy is firstly focused on preventing the birth of a strong European opponent. The Special Relationship with Washington, therefore, is still a priority, and “keeping Americans in,” as put by Lord Ismay, matters more than supporting Canada or creating a bloc with the other Anglo-Saxon Commonwealth countries. Therefore, we should not be surprised if Starmer has not taken a strong stance against Trump about his 51st State claims. Even in 1903, when the British Empire was real, London de facto sided with Washington on the Alaska Boundary Dispute, rather than with its then-Dominion of Canada, in order to preserve British-American relations.
Needless to say, this behavior has caused a looming feel of betrayal across the Atlantic Ocean. The King’s apparently detached attitude (which actually hides an open support for his Canadian subjects) has been contextualized with the institutional constraints he’s subject to; but Downing Street’s attitude has aroused a much greater disappointment.
In an op-ed in The Guardian, for instance, a professor at McGill University stated that she would have expected Lammy to stand up for Canada more clearly, for instance by saying something like “we support Canada in its efforts to remain a strong, sovereign country.” Since “Britain has long benefited from its Commonwealth,” and Charles III is still Canada’s constitutional Head of State, she expected something more than mere references to a shared history and Canada’s being “a proud sovereign nation.” At the same time, a finance professional from Toronto complained that “as we endure the MAGA onslaught, our supposed ‘allies’, including Britain, remain silent” and that “our ‘head of state’, King Charles, remains silent.” All these viewpoints have been published by The Guardian, which has then positioned itself as the most pro-Canadian British major newspaper despite its closeness to the ruling Labour Party.
Conclusion
What will the future bring us? On the one hand, Britain hopes that the next US president will drop any Canada claims and focus first and foremost on Europe, also against Russia. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to dismiss them as a mere boutade of Trump’s. As we said in a previous article about Greenland, the debate over a possible annexation of Canada or of some of its regions by the United States is way older than The Donald; and the same applies to American irredentism north of the border.
It’s unlikely that any US administration would move on to take over Canada before taking Greenland first, so a US takeover of Canada is highly unlikely in the short and medium term. But, if such threats become somehow credible, they will have repercussions on the relations between Britain and Canada as well.
