In today’s episode of Critical Conditions, Claire and I discuss the rapidly deteriorating US-Canada relationship and some surprisingly important developments that are turning Ukraine into part of the European defense establishment. There is a connection: Today is the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, and as Ukraine celebrates that, Canada is finding itself punished for insisting on a degree of independence from Washington.
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Other topics include: Israel’s seemingly mindless attacks in Syria; Iran’s brazen threats against Europe; the fallout in Asia from Trump’s harebrained foreign policy; and a potentially enormous mass kidnapping in Nigeria.
The US-Canada trade negotiations that appeared close to an agreement collapsed Friday night, and the United States then imposed an additional 50 percent tariff on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian exports, with Canada promising to retaliate dollar for dollar. According to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, part of the problem was an American demand that would have restricted Canada’s freedom to negotiate trade agreements with other countries and required Ottawa to align some Canadian tariffs with Washington’s. There was also a dispute over Canadian cultural protections, apparently involving rules governing American streaming platforms, with Carney saying he would not compromise on the protection of French language and culture.
The larger problem seems obvious: Trump is teaching the world that negotiating an equitable and durable arrangement with the United States is extremely difficult. The tariff policy itself remains economic lunacy. Trump continues to pretend tariffs are somehow paid by the foreign countries upon which he “imposes” them. They aren’t. They are paid by American importers and, ultimately, to a significant degree by American consumers. Ask Questions Later will examine this in detail later this week.
Ukraine offers a more encouraging example of the strange new international order taking shape. On its Independence Day, there are signs of a significant evolution in Europe’s relationship with Kyiv. Britain is releasing information relating to the Storm Shadow/SCALP missile and helping establish production and assembly capacity in Ukraine, while the EU has approved another €6.1 billion for Ukrainian air and missile defense. This comes just days after Ukraine and Finland signed agreements under which Ukrainian-designed unmanned weapons systems will be built in Finland. Finnish and Ukrainian companies will jointly develop and manufacture military drones, with Finland saying 90 percent of its drone production will go to Ukraine.
This is qualitatively different from the Western aid model of the past four years. Until now, the basic arrangement has been that Europe and America possess weapons and Ukraine needs them: the West sends Ukraine weapons, Ukraine uses them, and Kyiv eventually comes back asking for more. Increasingly, Europe is helping Ukraine manufacture the capabilities itself, and the relationship works in both directions. Europe has money, technology and secure manufacturing capacity; Ukraine has acquired something no Western European military possesses—years of experience fighting an enormous modern war, along with a defense industry that has been forced to innovate at extraordinary speed. European money and technological capacity are therefore being exchanged for Ukrainian designs, expertise and combat experience.
Ukraine is becoming not merely an aid recipient but a weapons producer for Europe, and this could ultimately integrate it into the European and NATO defense infrastructure more profoundly than pro forma NATO membership ever would. Factories, joint ventures, technology transfers and supply chains are rather more tangible than signatures on a treaty. There is an extraordinary irony here: Putin invaded Ukraine in large measure because he wanted to prevent Ukraine’s integration into the Western security system. His invasion may instead have produced a heavily armed Ukraine whose military-industrial base is becoming inseparable from Europe’s.
On the day Ukraine celebrates its independence from Moscow, Canada is being punished for asserting its independence from Washington. Obviously the methods and stakes are wildly different, but the imperial conception of sovereignty—the assumption that smaller countries ought to arrange their affairs according to the preferences of the larger power—is disturbingly recognizable. And this leads to the larger problem with Trump’s foreign policy: America’s allies are watching all of this and drawing conclusions.
In Asia, Trump is pursuing another overture toward Kim Jong Un while US-South Korean exercises are being curtailed. Japan is reconsidering the reliability of the American security guarantee, Taiwan is unsettled, and India is increasingly wary. Meanwhile, American military resources that would ordinarily be available in the Pacific have been diverted to the Middle East, while China is naturally watching the resulting depletion and disarray. At the same time, Iran is increasingly brazen. Tehran has repeated threats to strike US and allied military facilities in Europe if European countries permit their territory to be used in military operations against Iran, and it has also characterized participation in America’s economic campaign as an act of war. Europe does not possess anything comparable to Israel’s missile-defense architecture, so the economic campaign could itself become a pretext for massive escalation.
Then there is Israel, which appears determined to amplify its problem with Turkey. Israel struck an airbase in northern Syria, apparently to signal that it will not accept an expanded Turkish military presence there. Nobody was killed, thankfully, but the incident brought Israel and Turkey closer to a confrontation than either side presumably intended. There are perfectly good reasons for Israel to distrust Erdoğan. Turkey supports Hamas, Erdoğan’s government is authoritarian and frequently hostile to Israel, and Turkey has its own complicated agenda in northern Syria, particularly concerning Kurdish autonomy. But Israel’s behavior is both hypocritical and strategically stupid. Syria is a sovereign country; if its government wants Turkish troops there, it has the right to invite them. Israel itself currently has forces deployed in Syria beyond the Golan Heights.
More importantly, Israel is squandering what may be an extraordinary opportunity. Ahmed al-Sharaa is a former jihadist, and Israel is absolutely right to distrust him. His government’s behavior toward Druze, Alawites and Kurds provides additional reason for caution. But he is not governing Syria as a jihadist state, and Syrian officials have made surprisingly conciliatory noises toward Israel, even suggesting the possibility of something approaching peace. The appropriate response is “trust but verify”—or, more accurately, distrust but negotiate. Instead, Netanyahu’s government appears to be rejecting the outstretched hand while risking confrontation with a NATO country.
Finally, there is a potentially horrific story emerging from Nigeria. Video circulating online suggests that women, children and elderly people may have been abducted in an attack on a mosque. Residents have put the number as high as 600, although that figure has not been independently verified and initial police accounts referred to dozens. If the higher estimate proves accurate, it could be one of the largest mass kidnappings in Nigerian history.
We don’t pretend to have a solution to Nigeria’s decades-long security catastrophe; successive governments have failed to get a grip on kidnapping, jihadist violence, corruption and the broader weakness of the Nigerian state. But the comparative indifference of the world is remarkable. Where is the international pressure? Where is the diplomatic effort to find out what assistance Nigeria needs? And one detail is worth emphasizing amid attempts to impose simple Western political narratives on Nigerian violence: these victims were reportedly kidnapped from a mosque. Muslims, too, are victims of this catastrophe.
Democratic Socialists of America: Thanks for your attention to this matter! Israel is not the only story in the world. If you look closely enough at Nigeria, tehre too you may find a “genocide.”
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