What Donald Trump’s Return Means for Canada
Donald Trump has been president-elect for only a month, but he is already changing the direction of Canadian politics. On November 25, he announced he would impose a 25 percent tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada unless they cracked down on illegal immigration and drug trafficking at their borders.
According to a report by the Canadian Chambers of Commerce, the 25 percent tariff would devastate the Canadian economy, shrinking the gross domestic product by 2.6 percent annually (a loss of $78 billion). It would also shrink America’s economy 1.6 percent per year. In 2023, Canada exported $458.7 billion to the United States, which was 76.9 percent of its total exports. Oil and gas, the automotive industry and manufacturing metals are the top exports from Canada to America. This threat cannot be ignored.
Four days after Trump’s declaration, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an unannounced pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump. There was no prior notice of the visit, and the prime minister’s schedule did not indicate any travel. This was a humiliating moment for Trudeau. After years of showing himself as anti-Trump, he was put into a lose-lose situation: Serve your ego on a platter or face economic obliteration.
These events illustrate an 80-year-old reality about Canadian-American relations: America is the elephant; Canada is the mouse. The U.S. president often has more power over Canadian policy and decisions than the Canadian prime minister.
This was famously expressed by Pierre Elliott Trudeau: “Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” Trump grunted, and Trudeau’s son had to scramble in response.
More importantly, this Canada-America dynamic is tied into the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Whether Canadians like it or not, deliverance from their bitter affliction is connected to the fortunes of President Trump.
National Religion
“I must confess: My admiration for Donald Trump’s political skills grows with each passing day,” wrote Andrew Phillips at the Toronto Star. He continued:
Don’t confuse this with admiration for the man himself, his character or his policies. He’s had years to reveal himself as a vile manipulator willing to indulge in racism, authoritarianism, all those things, to serve his ends. He’s a threat to his own country and to all the world.
But when it comes to the exercise of raw political power, he’s giving a master class in how to bend others to his will. With a single social media post he has his country’s two most important trading partners dancing for his pleasure, trying to figure out how to appease the Monarch of Mar-a-Lago.
This captures the stereotypical thinking of Canadians about Donald Trump. They recognize his pragmatism and influence over their country, but they have a visceral dislike, even hatred, for him. This is because Canadians have been programmed and educated to be anti-American. Canadians prefer leaders who sacrifice the national interest to stick it to America. “Why?” asks historian J. L. Granatstein. “Because anti-Americanism, our secular religion, always seems more important to present-day Canadians than the national interest.”
This secular religion has been entrenched on the psyche of Canadians. Most Canadians have a self-righteous view of America as an unruly cousin that is uncouth, violent, rude, but powerful and needed from time to time. This is why most Canadian leaders will threaten trade war with America to win favor from voters but acquiesce behind closed doors. Trump’s pragmatic approach has removed this veneer.
Canadian Crossroads
In 1940, Canada came to a crossroads. The British Empire and Commonwealth was bankrupt and on the ropes, while America was growing in industrial and geopolitical strength. Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie-King had a difficult decision to make: Stay with the British Empire, or hitch Canada to the surging United States. He chose the latter.
The result was the Hyde Park Agreement and the Ogdensburg Agreement, which gradually integrated Canada’s economy into that of the United States. This started in the munitions industry, as supply chains were created across the border and they became interdependent. This gave Canada access to American dollars and gave America access to Canadian commodities. Granatstein writes: “Seen in retrospect, the agreement[s] marked the shift from Canada as a British dominion to Canada as an American protectorate.”
This integration has expanded to the entire Canadian economy. Its major commodities and infrastructure are designed to flow resources into America. Most of its oil pipelines run into America, not to other provinces. Its power and water lines run south, sharing electricity and water with America, with no infrastructure running east to west to share it with the rest of Canada. Its major manufacturing relies upon supply chains that flow in and out of America. The American and Canadian economies are permanently intertwined. No matter who is leading Canada, no matter their ideology, this is the economic reality.
Canada has come to another crossroad: Donald Trump.
Exposing Trudeau
One of Trump’s great strengths is identifying problems. Trump has been very clever in exposing Trudeau’s weakness and duplicity. His comments about Canada becoming the “51st state” and Trudeau being the “governor” remind the egoist Trudeau who has the power and expose his weakness as a leader.
Trump is also exposing Trudeau as a puppet of Barack Obama. Part of Trump’s intention is to use the tariff threat to set the stage for a renegotiation of the current free-trade agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. When Trump renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement in his first term, Barack Obama told Trudeau not to work with Trump and ignore his requests. Obama assured Trudeau a Nancy Pelosi-controlled Congress could protect Canada’s interests. But Obama’s advice backfired and Canada had to sign a new free-trade agreement with no say in its composition. Trudeau rushed to Mar-a-Lago to ensure Canada has a seat at the table this time around.
Trump’s demands are also exposing Trudeau’s Obamaesque border policies. For nearly 10 years, Trudeau has allowed record levels of immigration and has made Canada a vassal of the Chinese Communist Party. As the Trumpet has explained, Canada is being used as a staging ground for terrorists and drug traffickers to enter the U.S. Trudeau and many other liberal prime ministers did not stop these criminal activities because they form valuable minority voting blocs in urban centers.
In a few Truth Social posts, Trump exposed this perverse corruption and caused policy change in Canada. Emboldened by Trump’s courage, leaders across Canada are finally changing border, drug and trade policies.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is on an ad blitz on Fox News, encouraging a new trade alliance with America based on critical minerals and energy. (Ford is also threatening to cut off electricity exports to America if the tariffs are enacted, appealing to anti-Americanism because he is about to call an early election.) Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a $29 million plan to create a new sheriff patrol unit to enhance security at the border, stopping illegal immigration and drugs. Trudeau is developing a border immigration plan to crack down on illegal immigration and the drug trade. After a decade as Obama’s disciple, Trudeau is finding that the Obama era of power is over and he has to follow Trump.
The Canadian public is also aligning with Trump’s demands. Forty-eight percent of Canadians believe mass deportations should be used to remove illegal immigrants in the country, and 65 percent believe there are too many illegals. The Canadian people want change, and Donald Trump is delivering it to them.
This dramatic shift in Canadian politics with the return of Donald Trump aligns with Bible prophecy.
In America Under Attack, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry forecast that Donald Trump would return to the presidency based on prophecies in 2 Kings 14 and Amos 7. These scriptures show that when Trump, an end-time type of King Jeroboam ii, comes back, there will be a national resurgence. After years of decline and embarrassment under Obama and Joe Biden, America will recover some prestige and economic power.
In the January 2025 Trumpet feature “A Miracle Victory,” Mr. Flurry wrote: “Bible prophecy says that Donald Trump is going to lead a resurgence in America. Based on the scale of his victory, this resurgence could be significant and impressive. We must see that this is not the work of a man. This is God’s doing. God issued the prophecy, and God is bringing it to pass.”
If America is on the cusp of a resurgence, will Canada also experience a resurgence? Hosea 5:11 indicates that Ephraim (the biblical name for the British Commonwealth, including Canada) “willingly walked after the commandment.” This commandment is the way of Jeroboam, or Donald Trump. Politically, economically, culturally and even religiously, Canada will follow Trump’s leadership and policies to varying degrees.
As its economy adapts to Trump’s new policies, Canada may share in some of the economic benefits of this resurgence. Trump has weakened Trudeau’s chances of clinging to power. God may use Trump to break the iron grip Trudeau has had on Canada for a decade.
The resurgence is not the end of the story. God is setting the stage to permanently save our people from all affliction if we repent. America Under Attack explains the vital prophecies in which Canada’s fate is now intertwined.