US President Donald Trump speaking at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr.

Political leaders and the corporate media are reacting with considerable alarm to the sweeping changes that Donald Trump is imposing as he begins to implement his by-now infamous “America First” approach to world affairs.

In a recent Maclean’s article, University of British Columbia political scientist Stewart Prest channels some of the fear and anger that Trump is generating within the ranks of the Canadian establishment and beyond. He writes, “Donald Trump is trying to turn global diplomacy into a lawless extortion racket, and the weaker the mark, the harder the shakedown.” And the dramatic shift taking place in Canada-US relations is reflected in his stark conclusion, “Dealing with a lawless and predatory United States requires a coordinated response… Canada must act now to galvanize other countries into standing together against his threats of economic coercion and territorial expansionism… It’s time to create a coalition of the unwilling.”

Prest sets out the rudiments of a plan for international measures of retaliation against the Trump administration, even including tentative suggestions for cooperation with China “in standing against US economic coercion,” which he justifies on the grounds that, “As the noted realist William Shakespeare observed, misery acquaints us with strange bedfellows.” He goes on to explore the prospects of life in the bleak new world that Trump is devising, noting that, “A renewed commitment by Canada to the idea of NATO, for instance, and a commitment to reinvest in collective defence may go a long way to encourage Europe to do likewise, and to explore opportunities for deeper economic ties.” There is even a heartfelt call for “a new approach to global governance, with or without American involvement” because “The world simply cannot afford to wait and hope American democratic institutions rein in this administration. There’s no guarantee they will.”

In much the same way, Tim Ross and Jacopo Barigazzi pointed out in Politico that “Europe’s politicians… must now deal with an America that is at best skeptical and at worst hostile to the old world they represent.” They quote an anonymous European diplomat who bitterly complained that “We now have an alliance between a Russian president who wants to destroy Europe and an American president who also wants to destroy Europe.”........

© Canadian Dimension