Late‑night Truth Social post revived worries over tariffs, trade talks and Canada’s security
United States president Donald Trump posted an AI‑generated image on Truth Social late on Monday night that showed the US flag draped across Canada, Greenland and Venezuela, once again putting cross‑border tensions in sharp relief for policymakers and markets.
The photo, published just before 1 a.m. Tuesday, showed Trump in the Oval Office displaying the map as European leaders looked on.
This week, The Globe and Mail reported that the Canadian Armed Forces modelled a hypothetical US invasion of Canada and the country’s potential response, while stressing that such an operation remains unlikely and that the scenarios are conceptual rather than operational plans.
Officials and experts cited by the paper said the work reflected heightened concern over Washington’s rhetoric, not an expectation of imminent conflict.
The post landed after a fraught 2025 in which Trump repeatedly threatened new tariffs on Canadian exports and mused about turning Canada into the US’s “cherished” 51st state.
The administration is also pushing to annex Greenland, a Danish territory, and seeking more control over Venezuela’s oil sector after US forces seized president Nicolas Maduro and his wife in a Jan. 3 operation.
Trump’s push to influence the hemisphere aligned with his 2025 National Security Strategy, which said the US “must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity.”
Michael Williams, a professor at the University of Ottawa, said the Trump administration is “clearly focused on solidifying the United States’ position as the Western Hemisphere’s dominant power.”
“Unlike U.S. policy that saw your closest continental states as friends and allies, the Trumpian vision sees the geographic proximity of these states (Canada, Mexico, Greenland/Denmark) and their close economic and military ties to the U.S., as signs of weakness and sources of leverage to be exploited by the U.S. in building the continental core of it’s hemispheric hegemony,” Williams told CTVNews.ca.
For lenders and investors, the timing is sensitive. Ottawa and Washington have been working toward the 2026 review of the Canada‑United States‑Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), with markets already bracing for potential tariff fights over autos, agriculture and clean‑energy supply chains.
Canadian funders and non‑bank lenders closely tracked past trade flare‑ups for their impact on funding costs, currency risk and cross‑border capital flows, and industry sources expects similar scrutiny this time.
Defence experts interviewed in Canadian media have stressed that conflict remains a remote prospect even as planners tested worst‑case scenarios.
Retired lieutenant‑general Mike Day called it “fanciful” to think the US would actually invade Canada, while warning that “we wouldn’t be able to withstand a conventional invasion.”
Gaëlle Rivard Piché, executive director of the Conference of Defence Associations, said “clear signalling to our neighbour to the south that we want and we’re willing and able to rapidly be a credible ally that is capable of defending itself” would help deter any “potential willingness by the United States to control some of Canada or to invade a portion of Canada.”
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