Is Canada A Country, Or The 51st State?

The Carney government must not cede more ground to the Trump administration by backing down on recognizing the state of Palestine.

On Wednesday, the government of Canada said it would recognize the state of Palestine this fall. The recognition is conditional, which we can get into in another post, but the decision is remarkable nonetheless. Canada’s commitment follows other, some less tepid, plans from states to recognize Palestine, a growing chorus. The Trump administration tried to immediately silence the Canadian voice in that ensemble, immediately citing Canada’s decision as a reason to stall or abandon a trade deal that seems to be perpetually on the horizon, but which never comes fully into view, much less apprehension.

Canada must not back down from recognizing Palestine because the Trump administration doesn’t want us to. First and foremost, it’s the correct decision, but putting that aside for a moment, it’s also a necessary assertion of Canada’s right to decide its foreign policy for itself, a right that is too often watered down or traded away. There are more than a few ironies in Canada asserting this sovereignty while placing conditions on Palestine, but that too is for another post. The immediate fact is that anything but a complete and direct commitment to recognizing whichever state we wish, however we wish to recognize it, would represent a further erosion of our fundamental rights as a state.

In a system of sovereign countries, polities can and should decide for themselves how to behave internally and externally. Canada is free to recognize Palestine as a state, just as the United States is free to respond to that decision by abandoning trade talks with Canada. Sovereignty doesn’t require that states cooperate or trade or get on despite disagreements. Strictly speaking, you can claim Canada could back down from its recognition of Palestine and still be sovereign, but if it were to do so, it would be sovereign in name only. Some critics will suggest we’re well on our way there already, and have been for a long time. Either way, countries must have red lines. Palestine should be one of ours.

What’s it going to be, Canada? Photo by Lallaoke on Unsplash

We’ve stood up for ourselves before. Stephen Maher noted on Twitter that Canada has bucked the US more than once:

Over the years, Canadian PMs have angered the Americans by staying out of the Vietnam war, accepting US draft dodgers, recognizing China, fighting apartheid and staying out of the second Iraq war. It's the Canadian tradition.

We have indeed, and those moments have become defining markers for the country — and decisions that have found us on the right side of history each time. As a rough and ready rule, when Canada breaks with the US on foreign policy, it’s usually making the morally correct call. Of late, however, on domestic and foreign policy, the Trudeau and Carney governments have been willing to make concessions to the Trump administration in the hopes of securing a trade deal, and something approaching long-term stability for industry, workers, and consumers. For its part, the Trump administration has responded by jerking us around.

At Trump’s behest, Canada has pursued aggressive securitization of the border, including by tabling a rights-grab of a security bill. We’ve agree to get ‘tough’ on drug trafficking. We’ve committed to spending billions more on the armed forces. We’ve ditched our digital services tax. We’ve visited Trump in Washington and welcomed him to Alberta. Of course we did. We were told, by Trump himself, that the trade war was about border security and the (barely-existent) flow of fentanyl, military spending, trade imbalance, taxation of American tech companies, and whatever else irked the president one day or another. Now, it’s Palestine. Enough’s enough. It’s been enough for months.

Trump’s selective outrage is bullying, and farcical. It may also be short-lived. Alex Panetta observes that the president might not be as committed to treating Palestine as a barrier to negotiations as you might think. “Based on a variety of factors,” he writes, “including the divisions in Trump’s base, plus the vague language of his tweet, I’m smelling limited shelf life on this one.” (I added the link to that Tweet, for your reading displeasure.)

Indeed, Trump’s chest-thumping may be more about riling up Canada, using it “to create some 11th-hour panic in Ottawa, and squeeze Canada a little harder.” The fact that the president has managed to strike deals or bargaining extensions with other countries who share a similar policy to Canada’s on Palestine — Mexico and the United Kingdom, for instance — is evidence of as much. But the mere fact that Trump may believe he can use Palestine as a cudgel suggests he thinks Canada isn’t as committed to standing up for itself as Canadians might hope. It wouldn’t be an irrational presumption, given that we’ve backed down before.

This time, Canada mustn’t back down. Indeed, the Carney government should explicitly assert its right to recognize the state of Palestine in the face of Trump’s complaints and make it clear that there can and will be no quid pro quo on the matter. Anything outside of immediate trade concerns for which we would expect a fair and equal bargain. If Canada is going to strike a trade deal with the US (again), it ought to strike that deal as a full, sovereign partner and not (any further) an appendage of American hegemony.