The United States is currently embroiled in the early stages of a trade war with Canada, one of its largest trading partners. President Donald Trump has made plain, perhaps in jest, perhaps in earnest, that Washington’s aim is an expiry date on Canadian independence itself, fulfilling a new manifest destiny by bringing Canada into the Union as the fifty-first state. 

As the final report from Canada’s public inquiry into foreign interference in its last two elections shows, however, this is a moment for Washington to be defending and protecting Canada’s sovereignty, not challenging it. 

In 2019 and 2021, the Chinese state interfered in Canada’s elections, and the public inquiry’s concluding report reaffirmed that “the People’s Republic of China is the most active perpetrator of foreign interference targeting Canada’s democratic institutions.” 

Indeed, “[t]he PRC views Canada as a high-priority target,” no doubt because of its NATO membership, involvement in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing system, and general alliance with the United States, the very power that Beijing hopes to displace as the world order’s agenda-setter. With a new federal election scheduled in Canada for April 28 of this year, one can reasonably expect more of the same from the People’s Republic against our northern neighbor.

While the inquiry’s conclusions and recommendations have garnered the most attention, an underappreciated portion of the report involves a road that Canada has not taken. While Canada has, for instance, imposed sanctions against Chinese officials for human rights violations or issued tariffs against China

© The National Interest