Ralph Meima is an executive with 35 years of global experience in renewable energy, clean technology, information technology, management consulting, and sustainability-oriented education.
BRATTLEBORO-Signs are appearing that the Trump regime may deliver one of the most breathtaking geopolitical own-goals of all time, leaving traumatized American economic and military strategy to adjust to new, unimagined circumstances that unfold as a direct result of the president's destructive romp through our nation's institutions and alliances.
I am not referring to the Iran war, Venezuelan situation, threats against Greenland and Denmark, trade tensions with China, Trump's romance with Putin, and neglect of Ukrainian priorities, or Trump's tariff chaos, although they are all pretty bad.
I am referring to Trump's hostility, annexation threats, and trade actions directed at Canada, and to his extensive snubbing and ridicule aimed at European leaders.
But not necessarily from a standpoint most might first think of.
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Trump and his cabinet have insulted, denigrated, and offended Canada to the point of both defensive action on the part of the Canadian government and deep personal distress and loathing on the part of many Canadians.
The latest attack is Trump's new 50% trade tariff, of course. We here on the New England side of the border have witnessed this aghast, watching Canadian tourism revenues drain away as Trump bullied and jeered at the best ally and neighbor one could ever wish for.
Trump and his crew thrust the rhetorical and legal equivalents of a pro-grade industrial chainsaw into centuries-old trading, tourism, and cultural relationships among New England, Québec, and the Atlantic Provinces.
We had a vibrant regional ecosystem here and it is unclear how much damage it has sustained. I hope my worst fears are unwarranted. (At the time of this writing, Canada is even considering adding tariffs to electricity exports. Since Vermont's main power company, Green Mountain Power, is Canadian-owned, perhaps we might be spared?)
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One of Trump's favorite power moves is to poison relationships and pit people against one another so they're forced to go to him for resources and support instead. He revels in turning allies and trading partners into vassals and tributaries.
This appears to be his plan for Canada. He had been quiet on the northern front for some months now, but his anti-Canadian aggression just came roaring back like an unruly volcano.
It's hard to believe, but even worse eruptions in the direction of Canada may await U.S., inspired by Trump's assumption that defenseless, isolated Canada can be kicked around whenever he feels like extracting concessions or fending off Canadian competition in some sector. Or proving Canada is safer and better off as a U.S. state.
But Canadians aren't waiting around to find out. And they are a lot less isolated than the MAGA regime might assume.
In fact, Prime Minister Mark Carney has been raising the idea of joining the European Union, and recent surveys in Canada appear to indicate that a majority of Canadians now support this idea. Adding to the momentum, Carney attended the European Political Community summit in early May, a first for Canada.
It's early days, and we have no way of knowing how likely such a development is. But the EU Charter appears open to the concept of Canadian membership.
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To join the European Union, a country must possess stable democratic institutions and the rule of law, a functioning market economy, and the ability to implement all EU regulations and directives.
First, why would Canada shed its prominent position in NAFTA (or whatever Trump calls its replacement now, which, until he wrecked it, was essentially the same thing)? Why, indeed!
For Canada, its overbearing sibling, the United States, has now proven itself capable of going rogue, threatening its economic and political welfare and collapsing into authoritarian kleptocracy.
The U.S. has also shown the world that its vaunted branches of government can completely break loose from their checks and balances and that its celebrated constitution offers no way to pry loose Trump's autocratic fingers from the levers of power.
Why, therefore, would Canada settle for the vulnerable, unpredictable position it now finds itself in - open to American vagaries and now rudely awake to the nastiness America has turned out to be capable of?
They wouldn't. Who would?
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Canada seeks leverage in its dealings with both the United States and China. The EU offers stability and mutual support, not to mention favorable trade terms and a massive internal market.
The EU epitomizes commitment to democracy, human rights, and government accountability. The EU has the world's second-largest economy, and Canada would raise it a few percentage points.
Canada has the population of one of the larger European economies, comparable to Spain or Poland. Canada's official languages are English and French, conveniently. (The French would love it.)
Sorting out the process would keep a lot of lawyers busy, but at least there would not be any language problems. Plus, in-migration to Canada might shift in favor of European migrants (recalling that the EU enshrines "free movement of persons" in its Fundamental Rights Charter), placating Canadians on the right who feel too many non-European immigrants are entering.
Europeans are moreover no strangers to building far-flung empires; this idea may sound archaic in 2026, but it's not without historical precedent.
Plus, the EU has a decades-long history of absorbing new member states - there are nine in the queue right now - and Canada's accession might be one of the less complicated ones. Northern and western EU members might be glad to see the EU's centroid pulled back toward the Atlantic for a change, after a long period of accessions in Eastern Europe.
Our world is currently experiencing dizzying change and novelty. How likely is a Canadian accession to the EU? Who knows? But it could happen, and quickly. And why would Canada want to wait? Trump and MAGA are still on the loose.
This might turn out to be an easy sell in Canada, and develop momentum quicker than anyone expected. So let's think about the strategic implications for the United States.
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First, the EU with Canada added would stretch from Pointe de Langevin, Saint-Joseph, Réunion to the Yukon-Alaska border - a distance of over 10,000 miles. It would be a massive land area, ranging from the heat of the eastern Mediterranean to the tundra of Nunavut.
The EU would dominate the strategically important Arctic, with a front-row seat wrapping around much of the world. The EU would dominate the North Atlantic. With steadfast Commonwealth member Canada in the EU, the U.K. might feel compelled to un-Brexit, distancing itself from the USA's Mordor-like orbit.
As an own goal, this would be one for the record books. Due to Trump's aggressive, cocky, and presumptuous imperialism, the USA would suddenly find its access to the north blocked by a trade counterparty with vastly more negotiating heft than Canada alone.
With much of America's soft power and political capital burned out by Trump's oafish transactionalism, many non-EU nations in, for example, the Caribbean and Latin America might prefer to truck with the EU.
Actions have consequences, and not always the ones we expect. And Trump's mad, ruthless, exploitative behavior might cause immediate consternation among its victims, but nations can't be expected to simply wait around to endure more of the same. They have options. They have agency. They have allies.
One basic change is that 13 U.S. states would border the European Union. North of the USA would no longer be small, polite ol' Canada all by itself. Instead, it would sort of be like China unexpectedly moving in next door.
This would have both economic and symbolic effects, including the realization that our neighbor to the north is suddenly part of a world-spanning order way ahead of the U.S. in human rights, rule of law, government accountability, humane prisons, generous social benefits, health, infrastructure spending, environmental protection, energy and climate action, and more.
This might also have defense implications. For example, in pursuit of Trump's intention to annex Canada, attacking the EU versus attacking Canada would be two entirely different things. The EU already contains two nuclear powers (France and Britain) and the world's fourth-largest military spender (Germany), and may soon absorb the world's leader in drone warfare (Ukraine).
In other words, the USA would no longer be the only colossus occupying North America. Its freedom of action would be bound to shrink.
Looking ahead, the U.S. would need good relations with the EU because it already is (and would even more be) our biggest trading partner. And the soft power of the EU would insert a new dynamic into hemispheric geopolitics generally.
Losing Canada to the EU, and witnessing the EU's expansion into the Western Hemisphere, would go down as one of the biggest strategic backfirings in history. Would the USA go to war over this? After all, it might seem to violate the Monroe Doctrine.
But Canada was already here, and long a member of the British Commonwealth, which in turn was associated with the U.K., a member (pre-Brexit) of the European Union. The United States lived quietly with this status quo ante because Canada and the U.K. were allies and posed no threats to the U.S.
The difference now is that Trump has already reframed the EU as a strategic rival, no longer necessarily an ally. For this strategic rival to start asserting itself in Canada might be an entirely novel situation for the U.S. Trump and his team have already made it clear to EU leaders that, from now on, they cannot count on any sort of automatic deference or inclusion in America's business.
After some initial shock, disappointment, and dyspepsia, they are taking him at his word.
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Canada is not the only entity that must now look reality squarely in the eye and see to its priorities. New England and other progressive Northeastern states must do the same.
We cannot let the priorities of the Trump regime, the oligarchs, and other regions of the country interfere in our economic and cultural relations with nearby Canadian provinces and with the EU.
Geography is destiny, and New England's location beside eastern Canada and facing the European nations of the North Atlantic has always played into the life of its ports, air connections, in- and out-migration, universities, arts, tourism, and more. New England's electric grid is connected to Canada's. There are interstate cooperation agreements and summits. Vermont Public broadcasts to the greater Montreal metropolitan area as well as to northern New England - now stated openly since the federal share of its public broadcasting funding was eliminated.
Every facet of the future of New England is tied to continued relations with Canada and Europe, and if Canada joins the EU, this will add nuance to the context. New laws, regulations, terminology, relationships, and attitudes would need to be understood. New England would need to continue to assert its commitment to cooperation and commerce, even if Washington, D.C. or other U.S. interests do not.
Geography may afford New England a familiar port-of-entry role in trade and commercial relations between the EU and an increasingly foreign, estranged American continent.
Our political rights and economic priorities and prerogatives must not be stolen from U.S.. Our geography is our destiny, and must not be denied. If Trump drives Canada into a close relationship with the EU, New England will have a new crisis and opportunity to navigate.
A worrisome alternative scenario can be derived from the experience of the cities along the Iron Curtain, when, in 1945, East Germany was wrenched apart from West Germany. The economies of such cities as Erfurt, Lübeck, and Schwerin and their surrounding hinterlands were suddenly cut off from their established trading hubs and markets, precipitating an economic decline that continued until the end of the German "Democratic" Republic, beginning in 1989.
I remember driving into the GDR and by Erfurt in 1989 and passing through a landscape of economic devastation. Is this in store for New England, unless a more muscular and independent international trade and investment policy can be asserted? Will MAGA hold our regional economic vitality hostage to their ideology?
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Gov. Phil Scott is sounding the alarm about 50% trade tariffs. He should. I don't recall him being anywhere near this vocal about Trump's many other insane foreign policy ploys, including the current Vermont National Guard deployment to the Middle East. Maybe he should have been way more vocal already.
Scott knows that Vermont's economy is sensitive to trade, investment, and tourism with Canada. Our state is second after Michigan in relative economic dependence on Canada, at 14% versus 15% of state gross domestic product. The impacts are disproportionately weighted where Vermont can afford it least: the Northest Kingdom.
Vermont's overall economy is small, rural, and vulnerable to large tectonic shifts. A Canadian reorientation to the EU may have massive economic, bureaucratic, and cultural impacts on Vermont - not all negative, I might add.
Our Washington delegation needs to stay on top of this. A Democratic reconquest of Congress in November might help stop the tariff abuse. Other anti-Canadian action might be blunted.
But what we may be witnessing is a permanent change in Canada's U.S. stance, and full Canadian EU membership or an association agreement would lock in much of the current status quo and turn emotional reactions and short-term crisis response into institutional transformation and long-term policy.
Maybe Vermont needs to rethink how we engage with Canada, and take far more daring leaps in regional collaboration.
Maybe Vermont and New England need to rethink how we engage with the United States as well.
This Voices Viewpoint was submitted to The Commons.
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