ArcaMax

PARIS — Canada and the European Union are playing an intense game of tonsil-hockey, flagrantly making out in public like a couple of teenagers at the mall. And U.S. President Donald Trump has appointed himself chaperone.

Trump called Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s love affair with Europe “laughable,” but also potentially hostile. No crushes allowed unless approved!

Carney went to Europe last week because he has things to sell. Not just in a trade sense, but also in messaging. Carney is like the first guy into the building on the SWAT team, behind whom everyone else falls into line. The guy who isn’t paralyzed by inaction and seems unfazed by any incoming fire. If the EU was any good at that, they wouldn’t need Carney. But they do. And in more ways than one. Which is why he was invited to lay out a vision for the EU’s place in a new multipolar world that Brussels itself can’t seem to manage on its own, despite being far better positioned for it geopolitically than U.S.-adjacent Canada.

And Canada has a ton of natural resources. Precisely what Europe is looking to buy. But doing so has been no easy feat lately. First, they were egged on by the Biden administration to cut themselves off from Russian natural resources in favor of being gouged for pricey American fuel, and to buy into Washington’s loading up of Ukraine with weapons and fighters until Russia ultimately called time and launched a hot war on their doorstep. More recently, Trump’s war with Iran has closed shipping routes, cut off main EU suppliers like Saudi Arabia, and spiked European oil prices to the point of crisis and ongoing protests.

Canada is a one-stop shop solution to all of those problems. It could feasibly replace the lost oil — although it would require some redirection from supplying the U.S. market. Geographically, it occupies a similar space to Russia and could drastically reduce the EU’s reliance on Russia and China for other critical resources.

The unelected “President” of the EU’s executive branch, Ursula von der Leyen — aka “Queen Ursula” — publicly proposed making Canada an “associate member” of the 27-nation bloc. What does that actually mean? Apparently, some European officials are unsure. They’re either being obtuse, or they missed the first few weeks of EU Law. They seem to be hung up on the term itself. They really should know by now that Queen Ursula is big on gimmicky marketing when she gives these speeches, but it doesn’t mean that the underlying concept is unworkable.

Article 217 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) fully allows for Von der Leyen’s European Commission to launch discussions with Canada aimed at creating a bespoke association agreement — potentially giving Canada a privileged relationship with the EU without making it a member. Which is something that Carney says Canada doesn’t want anyway, in the interests of maintaining its own sovereignty and autonomy.

Carney has been constantly told by Trump to get out of his face like some kind of annoying door-to-door salesman. Trump is so disgusted by the sight of Canadian merch — however critical to the U.S. economy some of it may be — that he’s proven to be willing to stick it to American businesses and consumers financially, with tariffs, in order to avoid it.

When Carney tried to get a deal, Team Trump apparently volleyed across the negotiating table a last- minute proposal for Canada to grant Washington dibs over its own trade with other countries, and also to mess with French-Canadian content on American digital services. Carney ultimately decided to choose Trump’s wrath over Quebec’s. Good choice. The last thing that Canada needs is a faction that can be exploited by foes — both foreign and domestic — in an attempt to break up Canada to better control its considerable wealth. A separatist movement backed by powerful outside interests seeking to pull a resource-rich region away from the central government to rule indirectly, like Congo’s resource-rich Katanga province or British India and Pakistan. Nice trick. But an old and obvious one.

We’ve also seen this whole Canada-EU-U.S. relationship movie before. Several times, actually. “Footloose”, “Dirty Dancing”, “Pretty Woman”, “Romeo and Juliet”, “West Side Story”. A forbidden affair flies in the face of powerful forces opposing it. The issue in each case is the same: what gives these forces the authority to decide what others do with their lives?

What Trump is serving up is precisely the kind of paternalistic nonsense that women have fought against for the past century, now applied to nation states. And it’s laid out in black and white in the 2026 National Defense Strategy, issued in January 2026: “The Department of War will restore American military dominance in the Western Hemisphere,” it reads. “We will engage in good faith with our neighbors, from Canada to our partners in Central and South America, but we will ensure that they

respect and do their part to defend our shared interests. And where they do not, we will stand ready to take focused, decisive action that concretely advances U.S. interests.”

So much for free trade and free choice. Canada can date whoever it wants, provided Washington approves of the boyfriend and the prenup? Canada isn’t buying it. It took forever for women to be accepted as sovereign human beings instead of property belonging to some guy who fancied himself their overlord. Canada is demanding to be treated as a sovereign adult, too. And they’re done with just asking politely.