Canada needs a leap of imagination to understand, and survive, Donald Trump

You can’t take the measure of Donald Trump, or prepare for what new calamities the U.S. President could unleash, unless you have a vivid imagination.

Imagine a world, and an America, where old certainties evaporate and norms anchored in bedrock disappear overnight. That is not necessarily our future. But it might be. Preparing for it takes a leap of imagination.

Read science fiction. Or better yet, read history.

To work for the best outcome, sometimes you have to imagine the worst. And the worst that you can imagine? Human beings are often capable of it. Read science fiction. Read history.

Mr. Trump’s trade war on Canada was hard to imagine until it started in 2025. Tariffs on the pretext that Canada is flooding the U.S. with street drugs? Tariffing America’s closest security partner – joined at the hip in NATO, NORAD, Five Eyes, border security and more – as a national security threat? Seriously?

Generations of American leaders largely believed in trade with the neighbours as a win-win proposition. They approached Canada in that spirit, with talks as opportunities to find new win-wins.

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It’s how we ended up with nearly all goods crossing the border with no tariffs or other restrictions. Both sides agreed to that. The status quo was not only free trade, but an arrow pointing in the direction of ever more continental economic integration.

Mr. Trump rejects this. He decries free trade as Canada enjoying some benefits of U.S. statehood without becoming a state. Why should non-Americans prosper by trading with Americans, even if Americans also win in the exchange? He abhors the thought. He believes in win-lose, and conquer or be conquered.

His social-media posts deserve to be taken seriously; they are an insight into his imagination. He dreams of conquest and empire. Modern liberal economics says that trade is far more conducive to prosperity than conquest, but Mr. Trump says otherwise. He believes in Genghis Khan economics.

His image is that of a capitalist businessman, but Mr. Trump’s head is stuck in a world before liberalism or capitalism. It’s why he has such reverence for strongmen like Russian President Vladimir Putin. The largest country in the world has far more real estate than it knows what to do with, yet its leader is obsessed with conquering more.

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It’s also why Mr. Trump is so excited about his takeover of Venezuela. His predecessors talked about liberating the country from dictatorship; Mr. Trump is proud to say that he preserved the dictatorship and transformed it into a vassal. His recent deal with his Venezuelan satrap, in which much of the country’s future oil production has been signed over to the U.S., reveals how he sees the world.

That premodern sense of how an economy works is why he has repeatedly said that he wants to end Canada’s auto industry, by turning the North American auto manufacturing complex it into a purely American affair. He’s said the same about ending imports of Canadian steel, aluminum and other manufactured goods. The idea that a benefit for Canada might also benefit the U.S., and vice versa, is incomprehensible to him.

This President sees a free-trading North America not as a shared strength or opportunity, but as a rip off. He does not want loyal friends or willing allies, just subservients to threaten, bully and take advantage of.

He wants to transform continental integration from a sovereignty-respecting win-win to a relationship of dominance and submission, and win-lose.

Previous U.S. presidents never mocked our prime minister as “governor,” or threatened to make us the “51^st state.” It’s been more than two centuries since presidents drew up maps with Canada as conquered territory. Mr. Trump does this almost daily. It has gone from inconceivable to routine.

If your only frame of reference is postwar North America, where the U.S. behaved as history’s most liberal hegemon, it’s incomprehensible. But in the sweep of human history, Mr. Trump’s I-drink-your-milkshake approach is depressingly normal.

All of which explains why Canada-U.S. trade talks are not about to restart tomorrow, or reach a happy settlement the day after. Mr. Trump’s expressed desires are incompatible with Canada’s prosperity, and even Canada’s existence.

The United States may one day regain itself. It’s possible to imagine and hope for. It may come sooner than we think.

But in the months ahead, we must imagine the possibility of the opposite. Imagine, and prepare.

Mr. Trump has for months been laying the groundwork to derail November’s midterm elections. He is working to undermine democracy, since democracy is likely to cost him control of Congress. He tried to overturn the 2020 election, but did not succeed. He may not succeed this time.

But imagine if he did.