America and Canada are extremely close economically, culturally and politically. The US and Canada are far and away each other’s largest trade partners, accounting for almost 7 times the total trade of Canada’s next largest partner, the EU. 51.9% of foreign owned companies based in Canada are American owned. On top of this, Canada is demographically dwarfed by its southern neighbour, whose population share a common linguistic and cultural base. This demographic gap has prompted the Canadian government to pursue a natalist policy goal of achieving a population of 100 million people by the end of the century, likely a project pursued by Canada’s national bourgeoisie in an effort to prevent themselves from being subsumed by the juggernaut to the south.
Two previous Canadian prime ministers have in the past considered pursuing political union with the US, who would stand to benefit enormously from Canada’s substantial natural resources and strategic position in the North. Annexation of Canada would likewise benefit the American state by eliminating the largest land border in the world, administration of which currently costs the Canadian state 1.5% of its GDP. Moreover, this would finally connect America’s strategically important territory of Alaska to the US’ territorial mainland and thus render continental north America a single contiguous political territory, more easily administered and defended.
With all this in mind, do you think that America is likely to integrate Canada into its territory in the future? If so, long do you suspect it will take for this to occur? What implications would such an enormous development have for the international communist movement?
Annexation of Canada is certainly not the modus operandi of USA imperialism. It seems to me that USA is in a much more comfortable position having Canada as a vassal state, rather than dealing with the hassle of annexing a new population to the Union. Maybe a strong cooperation union of economies, like the EU, is more likely to happen. Both countries keep their autonomy in paper, and USA can have better control of Canada economy (just like Germany and France have on the countries of the EU).
This isn’t strictly the case. Both Hawai’i and Puerto Rico are examples of US annexations. The former even became a state. Beyond this, there are US overseas territories such as Guam, Wake Island, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands etc. At one point the Philippines were also an American colonial possession. Looking even further back, the US government has been more than happy to annex huge swathes of land if the situation called for it; the Louisiana purchase for example resulted in 828,000 square miles of land falling under the aegis of American state control. More than 55% of Mexico’s territory was likewise seized by force after they lost the Mexican-American war; substantial territories including California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Texas, all presently US states. In this sense, potential annexation of Canada isn’t without a historical precedent.
On top of this, I’d argue that the US has no strict doctrine when it comes to imperialism. The American bourgeoisie will ultimately pursue whatever policy it deems necessary to ensure its continued global hegemony. At present, it is clearly sufficient for the US to only dominate Canada in an almost semi-colonial manner. Would this remain the case if their economic domination of Canada were challenged by its international rivals like China, however? If that sort of situation arose, there would eventually come a point where the US might be forced to ensure its Canadian interests more directly; by bringing it under the direct administrative, military and legal oversight of the US state.