The people anxiously sipping hot chocolate at the Canadian Embassy in Washington on a cold January evening nearly a year ago could not have predicted the rollercoaster of trade provocations and bilateral implosions that the next 12 months would bring.
In retrospect, that unusually cold evening in Washington was a sign that relations between Canada and the United States would soon freeze.
US President Donald Trump's tariff threats and talk of annexing Canada have already rocked Canadian politics in previous weeks. A hasty trip to Mar-a-Lago in early November 2024 failed to mend former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's already rocky relationship with the new US president.
On January 20, the day of his second inauguration, Trump returned to the Oval Office to announce his “America First” trade policy. Just a few weeks later he announced high tariffs on Canadian imports.
By early February, it was obvious to everyone that the relationship Canadians thought they had with their nearest neighbor was over.
Former Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly called on “every political leader across the board, across the country, to be united because now more than ever we need to make sure we put country first.”
All this happened against the backdrop of rapid domestic political upheaval, which led to Trudeau, weakened by poor polls and internal divisions within the Liberal Party, announces on January 6 that he will step down as prime minister. as soon as a new Liberal leader was chosen.
Mark Carney became party leader in March and almost immediately launched elections, forming a minority government after a campaign centered on Trump.
Trump's tariffs, which do not apply to eligible goods The Canada-United States-Mexico Trade Agreement known as CUSMA. — hit Canada in March.
In August they were increased to 35 percent. as Trump complained about Canada's retaliatory tariffs and supply management in the dairy sector and said Ottawa had not done enough to stop the very modest cross-border flow of fentanyl.
The president's separate Section 232 tariffs on specific industries such as steel, aluminum, automobiles, copper and timber also hit Canada hard.
Get the latest national news
To stay on top of news affecting Canada and the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you as they happen.
In April, Trump took his trade war to a global level by introducing so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on virtually all countries. World leaders were quick to react. Some signed frameworks of trade agreements that promised large investments in the United States in exchange for slightly lower tariff rates.
The speed and scale of Trump's trade war with the world took everyone by surprise, said Fen Osler Hampson, a professor of international relations at Carleton University in Ottawa and co-chair of the Expert Panel on Canada-U.S. Relations.
Although the president toned down his talk of annexation after Carney's election, trade deal deadlines have come and gone since then with no clear progress.
Negotiations remain at a standstill.
“This is… I would hasten to add that this is not (Carney's) fault,” Hampson said.
Carney suspended Canada's digital sales tax, tightened border security, reduced most retaliatory tariffs and increased defense spending in an unsuccessful attempt to get Trump to cut tariffs.
Until recently, however, a quick breakthrough in tariffs seemed possible.
Carney and Trump complemented each other and bantered with reporters during two cordial meetings at the White House. In mid-October, media reported that some basis for an agreement to ease tariffs was in the works.
Things went awry in October when Trump, offended An Ontario-sponsored television ad quotes former U.S. President Ronald Reagan criticizing the tariffs.stop trade negotiations.
Canada and the United States have had differences throughout their shared history, but in the decades following the North American Free Trade Agreement, most observers expected the continent to become more integrated, Hampson said.
“That’s no longer the case,” he said. “We are increasingly like three countries going down different paths.”
For many Canadians, the past year has felt like an existential crisis—a sustained, stunning assault on the sovereignty and stability of this country. In the United States, frayed relations with Canada have had less of an impact.
Americans who support the Trump administration see it doing what they voted for, even if it means Canada will be dragged in as collateral damage. For Trump's opponents, the president's actions have unleashed a wave of troubling changes that they are struggling to keep up with – and Canadian issues are not necessarily their priority.
Matthew LeBeau, a political science professor at Western University in London, Ont., said the Trump administration has crossed many red lines.
“The decline of democracy in many, many ways, the disregard for constitutional limits on presidential power, the disregard for the role of Congress in setting policy, especially regarding tariffs,” he said.
The Trump administration has launched a massive deportation campaign that is filling Americans' news feeds with images of armed, masked ICE officers attacking peaceful neighborhoods. He sent National Guard troops to Washington and other Democratic strongholds over the objections of governors.
Trump has targeted law firms and universities to bring them in line with his agenda. His administration dismantled the United States Agency for International Development and is working to do the same with the Department of Education. Thousands of US government employees have been laid off.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pursuing radical vaccine policies that have alarmed doctors and researchers.
From Russia's war in Ukraine to missile strikes on suspected drug ships near Venezuela, U.S. foreign policy seems to change almost weekly.
This year also saw the longest government shutdown in United States history.
Alasdair Roberts, a public policy professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, called the past year a “partial revolution.”
“This is an attempt at regime change, but it is limited by the fact that the courts can still review (Trump's) actions,” Roberts said. “And it doesn’t have the necessary legislative changes … to sort of cement the new way of working.”
Despite the rapid collapse of norms in Washington, Roberts said he does not believe American democracy is in crisis. There is dysfunction in the nation's capital, he said, but that does not mean the entire system is faulty.
Roberts pointed to the November election, when millions of Americans voted without controversy, and issued a pre-election rebuke to many Republican candidates.
Roberts also noted that the state of U.S. federal politics has forced Canada to accept an uncomfortable truth: The way the United States perceives its neighbor to the north has fundamentally changed.
“This is the moment Canada realized the game had changed,” he said.
“The game has changed over the years, but this is the year the shoe dropped.”
