Ever since US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Canadians have been focused intently on the likelihood of the imposition of punitive tariffs on this country’s most significant exports.
From the point of view of the national interest, while such focus is understandable, it also risks minimizing the complementary threats to Canada’s long-term security that must too be addressed quickly.
Canada’s national interests can be roughly divided into two pillars: North American interests and international (or internationalist) ones.
A good relationship with the United States is critical to preventing direct threats to Canadian defence and security as well as to national economic prosperity.
Geography has made America Canada’s most important military ally and economic associate.
When Canada-US relations are at their best, as they were during the Mulroney era, Ottawa’s unique access to the centres of American power also enhances its relevance on the world stage. Countries that cannot reach the White House or Congress directly are inclined in such times to seek out Canada for guidance and advice.
But good relations with the United States are not sufficient to ensure Canadian success on the world stage.
Canada’s diverse citizenry; its extensive trading relationships around the world; its geographical status as a North Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic state; and its historic ties to Europe and the Commonwealth, not to mention its direct involvement in the establishment of the contemporary system of global governance that has served it so well for nearly 80 years, all point to the importance of preserving as much of the liberal, rules-based international order as is possible in these times of global stress.
Canada might be able to survive in a fortress North America, but it can only thrive in an international system designed and managed by the United States and its other major allies.
In this context, President Trump’s executive order withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization and his more general plans to limit American engagement in traditional multilateral institutions should be treated as a similar emergency.
Just days before the inauguration, America’s now former Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, issued a prescient warning: “It is important that we not cede any space to our adversaries,” she told her incoming successor Elise Stafanik.
While it is indeed important to the United States, it is far more so to Canada.
Washington can act alone in the world, assembling coalitions of the willing when needed and using its raw power to compel behavioural change; Ottawa has no such global leverage.
It relies on stable, Western-friendly international institutions to identify allies during multi-party negotiations, to moderate global aggression, and to increase the transparency and therefore also the accountability of great power behaviour.
These institutions are hardly perfect but, as designed, they privilege Western approaches and therefore support Canadian interests.
Canada’s two greatest adversaries – Russia and China – take starkly different approaches to global governance.
While Russia has made its contempt for international rules and laws clear through its illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese seem intent on maintaining but refashioning the international order to better align with Beijing’s interests.
A World Health Organization that Washington cedes to China, for example, will be hesitant to review the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A UN Human Rights Council dominated by the Chinese and their minions will ignore Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghurs and similar human rights violations around the world. A World Trade Organization controlled by China and its operatives is likely to settle trade disputes in a manner unfriendly to Western liberal democracies.
Canada is limited in what it can do alone to compensate for what is likely to be an overwhelming US withdrawal from the international system, but that does not mean that it is powerless.
Now is therefore not the time to even contemplate cuts to Global Affairs Canada. The intent should be to replace every American withdrawn from an international institution with another Western representative.
Canadians should volunteer to fill as many positions as they can, but Ottawa must also lobby its European and Commonwealth allies to do the same.
In spite of Canada’s long-term neglect of its international sources of power, between 2019 and 2021, Foreign Ministers Francois Philippe-Champagne and Marc Garneau convinced more than 50 states to support an International Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations. (There are now almost 80 endorsees.)
It was a direct response to China’s illegal detention of the “Two Michaels,” but it gained broad support because other states recognized that they could be next.
A similar effort to prevent Chinese control of the international order is now desperately needed.
One can only hope that Canadian officials tasked with responding to the threat of tariffs can walk and chew gum at the same time.
About the Author
Adam Chapnick teaches defence studies at the Canadian Forces College. He is the co-author (with Asa McKercher) of Canada First, Not Canada Alone: A History of Canadian Foreign Policy.