Canada Needs a New Generation of Americanists for the United States That Exists, Not the One It Remembers

Canadian-American relations have reached their lowest point in the two countries’ histories. With US President Donald Trump’s continued rhetoric about making Canada the 51st state, an escalating trade war brought on by unnecessary tariffs, and petty politics – like the renaming of Lake Ontario to Lake America – it is no wonder that many Canadians feel as though our traditional relationship with the US is over.

​Yet there is a prevailing thought in Canada that argues against damaging our relationship with the US by diversifying our trade away from the North American market, purchasing non-American defence equipment, and pursuing a more Canadian-centric grand strategy that may cause friction with US policies. Instead, the thought asserts that Canada should refrain from such decisions, work with the White House on common objectives and goals, and wait out Donald Trump’s presidential tenure until 2028. Economist Jack Mintz, for example, has warned that diversifying trade away from the US will cost Canada GDP and jobs, while a recent letter in The Globe and Mail asked whether Canada could wait out the Trump administration by accepting a less-than-ideal agreement.

​This line of argument reveals a gap in Canadian foreign policy: a lack of contemporary understanding of where America stands today and where it is heading.

​The assumption that the US will revert to the geopolitical posture that once made it the indispensable defender of the liberal rules-based order is a fallacy. More often than not, this perception forces Canadians scholars, experts, and citizens to project their historic memory of how they remembered the US, often seeing it as the “shining city upon the hill”.

​Yet, if America’s domestic politics is anything to go by, both the Republican and Democratic parties have moved on from this nostalgic image and are heading further towards their respective ends of the political spectrum to preserve what they think makes America prosperous and strong. Often these ideological narratives are reactionary to either side’s political and policy proponents, highlighting the decay of commonality and strategic visions for advancing America’s geopolitical interests.

​America’s New Political Reality

In the Democratic Party, gone are the days of liberal internationalism driving foreign policy calculations. Instead, the coalition of conservative democrats, moderates, and progressives is in a state of competition for the “soul of the party,” often at odds over economic, social, and foreign policies. This is best seen following the most recent primary and mayoral elections that have demonstrated the ascendancy of the party’s progressive wing, including candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), reinforcing the traditionalist versus ideological brass of the party.

​While it is difficult to ascertain what a more left-leaning Democratic presidency would mean for how the US structures its foreign policy, it is abundantly clear that populism – specifically the skepticism towards globalization and the inclination to use tariffs to protect American workers and industries – will likely remain a defining feature but with a more “leftist” ideology.

​Among the Republicans, it is increasingly unlikely that the MAGA movement will subside after Trump leaves office. In fact, with many centrists or moderate conservatives being marginalized or primaried out of power, the Republicans will likely remain the party of MAGA, whether Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, or some unknown outsider leads the Republican Party in 2028 and beyond.

​If history proceeds as it has since 2010, the Republican Party could continue its path further to the right. This can include more vehement stances for applying economic coercion to advance and achieve US objectives, a further retrenchment against liberal hegemony for regional hegemonic aspirations, and a more civilizationalist foreign policy that focuses on American history, heritage, and religion over universal norms and values of liberal democracy and economics.

​Perhaps the only caveat with Trump being gone from the White House is that the next Republican president may not be as spontaneous, unpredictable, and manic in its decision-making. However, having Trump out of the White House does not translate to a return of normal politics within the Republican Party.

Beyond a doubt, Trump will likely remain a powerful figure in America’s conservative wing but from outside the Oval Office, especially when political decisions and foreign policy directions go against such strategies like the Donroe Doctrine, a corollary of the 19th century Monroe Doctrine that dictated America’s position for hegemonic aspiration for the Western Hemisphere. Additionally, any shifts away from Trumpian reindustrialization and immigration politics could see Trump denounce or sideswipe future Republican leaders for striving too far away from the MAGA movement.

​Canada, America is concerned with its Great Power Status

Overall, Canadians need to understand that as a great power, America is facing some serious hurdles that can erode its economic and military hegemony. With a national debt of $40 trillion, an overextended and logistically strapped military, and an existential dilemma for how the US wants to engage, lead, and interact with allies and adversaries, Canadians need to comprehend that a key priority for the US in the decades ahead will be to preserve its great power position both globally and increasingly regionally.

​This new geostrategic direction has made the US, under Trump, more willing to use economic intimidation and coercion, which has consequently led the US to alienate allies. It has also made the US more comfortable in pursuing other populist policies that protect American industries at the expense of economic interdependence with allies. Trump is not the singular example in this case, as President Joe Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act showcased the preference for onshoring key industrial capabilities, in this case domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research, that are vital for the US geostrategic competition with China.

​Under President Trump, in particular, Canada has seen a US more prone to military adventurism against non-peer adversaries – like Venezuela and Iran – that pose no immediate national security threats. While these instances may not have direct national security complications for Canadian national security, it does put Canada, and other allies, in a politically tricky situation as they must either support such operations or become isolated from American geostrategic thinking and risk further ire of the White House.

​With the ever-shifting nature of American politics and grand strategy, Canada needs a new generation of American-centric strategic thinkers in our foreign policy circles. Known as Americanists, these Canadian scholars and experts would study how contemporary US culture, politics, history, economics and geography shape and influence American domestic affairs and geopolitics.

​A New Generation of Americanists for Canada

A new generation of Americanists would help solve a central problem in our foreign policy institution: the preference for generalists. With a more complex multipolar geopolitical environment and a rapidly changing American populace and political community, Canada will require more specialized expertise to avoid amateurish and nescient advice that can hinder Ottawa’s foreign policy calculations regarding the US.

By having a new generation of Americanists, Canada can develop more proactive approaches for Ottawa in directing Canadian-American relations by having better ways to identify and assess emerging US political dynamics that shape domestic affairs and foreign policy.

​To attain these new thinkers, Ottawa must carve out American-centered learning spaces by expanding our consulates. Currently, Canada’s consulates in the US stand at 14, with many of them serving Canadian citizens, businesses, and authorities. While such services should continue, the consulates should also serve as on-the-ground political analysis hubs. By having more consulates spread across the US, Canadian experts and scholars can better contextualize the US’s political design, attitude, and disposition on key items like trade, energy, industrialization, and immigration that make or break America’s political parties’ electoral hopes.

​As such, Canada should establish close to 41 more consulates, which will bring Canada’s consular levels to that of Mexico, in key swing states that have influenced and impacted presidential and congressional elections in recent years. These consulates do not need to be exquisite facilities within multi-acre compounds. Instead, they should be housed in a single floor mid-sized commercial office building.

To ensure that Canada’s new generation of Americanists have adequate connectivity and transparency among GAC, DND, and the PMO to generate more coherent interactions and briefings, Ottawa will need to invest in up-to-date infrastructure like encrypted network layers, satellite fallbacks, encryption hardware and devices, protected transmission systems, and zerotrust architecture. While this may seem like an expensive undertaking, these endeavours should be observed as long-term investments that can deliver sweeping diplomatic results that cannot be measured by monetary amounts alone.

These consulates should also focus on sub-national diplomatic opportunities by being based in Georgia, Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada. In doing so, the next generation of Canadian strategic thinkers will gain crucial networking and research opportunities that look at how the US municipalities, state governments, community-led organizations, academic institutions, activists, and sectoral lobbying groups impact political thinking on trade, technology, innovation, defence, and security matters.

​By having this continuous exposure, Canada’s next generation of Americanists can contribute to new outlooks for how Canadian leadership and the general public can understand America’s political landscape as well as generate novel advice on navigating our relationship with the US, regardless of who holds the presidency.

​Lastly, Ottawa must also provide funding to Canadian universities and think tanks to form Canadian-American institutes that focus on managing and reinterpreting our relationship. These institutes would seek to establish new learning pathways for future Canadians to gain familiarity with the modern-day complexities and challenges of American politics, culture, and economics by having fellowships, internships, and job opportunities with American think tanks and other intellectual organizations that play a critical role in American policymaking.

The Future Begins Now

In granting the next generation of Canadian strategic thinkers better tools and public forums to debate and manage Canada-US relations, Canada will have the capacity to bridge the divides and misunderstandings that impact our trading and security relationship.

Canadians were caught off guard by Trump’s first election victory, and were equally heedless in assuming a second term wouldn’t follow, due to a failure to understand America’s political landscape.

​If Ottawa wants to avoid similar pitfalls in the future, it must invest in a new generation of Americanists that will give Canada a sharper way to engage Washington and shape Canadian-American relations going forward.