In 1961, just one month after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, President John F. Kennedy made his first foreign trip to Canada. The charismatic Kennedy entered Parliament, giving an eloquent speech that produced a standing ovation: 

Rule of law means that there is an objective set of laws that applies to everyone. Nobody is above the law. The alternative is rule by power. Those who have political power determine the rules and enforce them on the masses. Without rule of law, rules are subject to change, depending on the preferences of the politically powerful. Without rule of law, the rules constraining the masses do not apply to the powerful.

President Barack Obama created the U.S. Digital Service in 2011. He proclaimed it would be vital in “getting rid of the pointless waste and stupid spending that doesn’t benefit anybody.” He put then-Vice President Joe Biden in charge of the initiative.

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised many things: streamlining the federal government, securing borders, mass deportations, lowering prices, and imposing tariffs on rival countries. Yet, among these promises, he never mentioned annexing Canada or Greenland. For voters who chose Trump as the lesser of two evils—and even for hardcore supporters—his recent rhetoric comes as a shock. This was not on the ballot.

Among the 64% of eligible voters who cast a presidential ballot in 2024, the vote was almost a tie (President Trump won 49.8% versus Vice President Harris’s 48.3%). The close call is not the most interesting part; the polarization is much more interesting. President Trump is not one to leave many voters or commentators indifferent. He is portrayed as satanic by his detractors and messianic by his supporters.

The scheduled spring performance of government shutdown theater didn’t go as planned this year. The performance was set up just before Christmas 2024, when lame duck President Joe Biden signed a short-term spending bill that would keep the U.S. government’s lights on for about another three months. The bill did that by increasing the U.S. government’s debt limit to $36.1 trillion.

Hardly a day goes by without a policy announcement or public statement by President Trump that betrays a nationalist instinct. The first problem with nationalism is semantics. People tend to confuse it with patriotism, a deeply felt emotion that a nationalist can easily stir with a discourse that equates love of country with hostility to the outside world and, domestically, to those presented as a threat to the nation. 

This month is the five-year anniversary of the COVID-19 lockdowns in California. In March 2020, I was studying abroad in Saint Petersburg, Russia. I had heard rumors about lockdowns in the West, but nothing had changed in Russia. People continued to move about without a mask, and people certainly were not locked down. Life was normal.

The Trump administration’s tariffs are a disaster for both the Canadian and U.S. economies. As of writing this, the administration has flipped-flopped on implementing them. However, the outcome is nearly as detrimental as imposing tariffs due to the uncertainty that has emerged in our long-standing alliance with America’s neighbor. Canadian businesses have pulled American products off their shelves en masse and American businesses are unable to plan for the long term if they don’t know which inputs they’re able to buy abroad. 

President Trump entered the Oval Office like a tornado, signing more executive orders in his first two weeks than any president has signed in his first 100 days since President Harry Truman. His America First agenda will reshape trade and foreign policy, ushering in a new protectionist era. His imposition of tariffs, and bluster in wanting to make Canada the 51st state, has not only increased Canada’s anxiety level but revived the political fortunes of the country’s left-leaning Liberal establishment. A recent Leger poll found that 75 percent of Canadians view President Trump negatively and 13 percent view him favorably. This has galvanized Canadians around the Liberal Party, stealing support from the socialist NDP and the Conservatives who have lost their big lead in the polls.