How Trump Is Treating Canada — That Alone Makes NATO Null And Void

-Analysis-

CALGARY — This year has seen a riveting surrealist drama open on the geopolitical stage, with narrator U.S. President Donald Trump setting the scene: proposing to annex Canada and Greenland; threatening many U.S. allies with trade tariffs; trying to force a "peace deal" on Ukraine, which sounds like surrendering to Russia and bizarrely includes the U.S. laying claim to half of Ukraine’s natural resources; and most recently, ambushing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House in a scene reminiscent of Game of Throne's "Red Wedding" episode.

All this calls into question the role of NATO.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed after World War II by and for a collection of Western nations to jointly stand against Russia. In 1949 and indeed throughout the Cold War, it was difficult for the West to imagine anyone else as a threat. They certainly never thought one of their own members could turn against or threaten another member. That would have been the equivalent of the yet-to-be-developed horror movie trope "The call is coming from inside the house."

In 2020, tensions did arise, however between Greece and Turkey – both NATO members – over ownership of gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean. There were fears then of an intra-NATO conflict but ultimately the issue was resolved with talks.

This situation is more serious now, in 2025: There are tensions between Canada and the U.S. as Trump repeatedly threatens to annex Canada for reasons including resources, trade and access to the Arctic.

Conflict within NATO

This, after many decades of Canada having followed the United States as a faithful little brother. Canada fought next to the U.S. in both world wars as well as several recent wars of Washington's choosing. Both are members of NATO. Both share intelligence through the Five Eyes network. Canada is the country (apart from Israel) that has voted most often with the U.S. on UN resolutions – sometimes even putting its moral compass aside to do so. The U.S. is Canada’s biggest trading partner.

After all this, Trump has not only falsely accused Canada of allowing in huge amounts of fentanyl and illegal immigrants, but has slapped it with 25% trade tariffs (which he then postponed again until April 2). And the threats of annexation continue.

Trump could just as easily say in the future that Canada instigated a conflict with the U.S.

NATO is very clear on what to do when there’s a threat to one of its member countries from an outside or non-member country. The often-quoted Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty clearly states an armed attack against any member shall be considered an attack against them all.

But when it’s a case of one NATO member against another, the prescribed actions become fuzzy. In general, NATO is supposed to the defend the victim and fight against the aggressor. But who is the aggressor; who started the war? As we know in the era of Trump, that is an open question and the answer can vary.

The power of the narrative

In the case of the Russia-Ukraine war, many of us had thought all along that Russia was the aggressor. We remember Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. We remember how in late 2021, the U.S. under President Joe Biden warned Ukraine and the world that Russia was planning some military action. We remember how in February 2022, Russia attacked Ukraine. But last month, in a stunning plot twist, Trump berated Zelensky for starting the war and called him a dictator.

Then it becomes a question – not of who actually started the war – but rather who’s in charge of “the narrative” and what he narrates: i.e., who does he say started the war? As Winston Churchill once said “History will be kind to me, because I will write it."

And indeed, Churchill may have had a hand in shaping the West’s ongoing perception of Russia as the eternal antagonist: "I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest." This is stated as though no other country acts in its own national interest.

Now, Trump is writing history or, in current parlance, “the narrative.” And he says that Ukraine started the war. He could just as easily say in the future that Canada instigated a conflict with the U.S. by not agreeing to become America’s 51st state. Faced with the current U.S. threats to Canada's sovereignty, NATO is remaining silent, apparently so as not to escalate the situation.

If the U.S. were to invade Canada, would NATO feel similarly cowardly and meekly fall in line behind the new U.S. narrative? A hint to the answer could lie in NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte's statement last week urging Zelensky to find a way to restore his relationship with Trump.

Stay or leave?

There is now a visible rift between the U.S. and the other NATO members. And more worrying, there are signs of growing collusion between U.S. and Russia. Over the past two weeks, it's been reported that Washington and Moscow are discussing the fate of the Arctic; the U.S has sided with Russia in a UN vote acknowledging Russia as the aggressor in the Ukraine war and has suspended its cyber operations against Moscow; and Trump has publicly humiliated Zelensky. In response, Canada and European countries quickly restated their continued support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Trump may want to stay in NATO and use its combined resources for his own purposes.

Trump may take one of two actions. Given his often-stated isolationist perspective and his complaints that other NATO members are not paying their share, Trump could withdraw the U.S. from NATO; he has said as much often and over the years.

But NATO has been good for the U.S. in the past – and may also be in the future. The only time NATO invoked its Article 5 was after the 9/11 attacks when all member countries unanimously came to the aid of the U.S. Given the U.S. domination of NATO, Trump’s often-stated expansionist ambitions, and America’s new "friends," he may want to stay in NATO and use its combined resources for his own purposes – such as accumulating an American Empire (think Greenland, Canada, or possibly Ukraine as an economic colony) or even strengthening Russia’s hand. Most recently, it has surfaced that Norway fears that the U.S. may share Norway’s intel and security information with Russia.

NATO without the U.S.

NATO also has a several options. It could continue to stay quiet (as it has in the face of threats to Canada and Greenland), try not to inflame the situation, and hope fervently that Trump does not invade any member countries. But such silence could precipitate what is to follow.

Or NATO may wish to voice its disagreement, act in accordance with the majority of its members, while keeping a watchful eye on the US. The third option – expelling the US from NATO – is not really an option: There is no formal mechanism for expelling a member and indeed expelling the U.S. seems suicidal. But interestingly, the thought has come up as gossip. If for whatever reason the U.S. is not within NATO, what are chances of NATO disintegrating?

On the one hand, NATO has been a U.S.-led military alliance and the U.S. is a global superpower; and so, NATO without the U.S. may collapse. On the other hand, the US is just one of 32 NATO member nations. And while as a country the US has a huge annual defense spending of over $800 billion, the European countries together with Canada manage a decent $380 billion. Germany’s newly-elected chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is already thinking about alternative security structures. A saga is not a one-man show; it has other characters who can play a significant part, especially when they group together.

The end of NATO?

But the more fundamental question may be, is NATO still needed? There are some – including experts – who feel that we’ve long been brainwashed to see Russia as the paramount threat, and we have poured much time, effort, and money into fighting this imagined threat. But over its surprisingly lengthy war with Ukraine, it’s become clear that Russia is a reduced power.

Last week, in his detailed speech to the European Parliament, renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs said that the USSR believed the U.S. when it said in 1990 that NATO would not expand beyond its then borders, and Russia would now be satisfied if just Ukraine and Georgia did not join NATO so as to avoid western warheads on Russia’s borders.

The general concept of NATO may still be needed.

What a relief it would be to the world to stop spending billions on an imagined threat – in which only the military apparatus and arms dealers have profited. We could then focus on the many real, imminent and common issues at hand like climate change, sustainable development and migration.

But unfortunately, the general concept of NATO, a security coalition of North Atlantic countries to counter a perceived outside threat, may still be needed. The current complex, fast-changing and unpredictable drama – where characters are shape-shifting, the script is unwritten and the narrator is unreliable — looks more like improv.

On the one hand, there are few rules, which is frightening; on the other, there is much opportunity for those brave enough to take it. The secondary characters of NATO – in concert with like-minded countries around the world – may need to quickly pull together, reimagine and improvise to form an independent defense capacity without the U.S. The role for a North Atlantic military alliance may be more important now than ever; but the antagonist may be different.