Bannon says Trump is serious on Canada being the 51st state

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Steve Bannon calls the constant barrage of statements, pronouncements on policy and executive orders coming from the White House “days of thunder.” Donald Trump’s former chief strategist from the first administration no longer works for his old boss, but he’s definitely a key part of the MAGA movement.

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Sitting in his Washington, D.C. townhouse just steps from the U.S. Supreme Court, Bannon has a message for Canadians – take Trump seriously on the 51st state comments.

“President Trump is not trolling people in this,” Bannon said during an interview last week.

Bannon says straight up that he no longer speaks for Trump, but he enthusiastically supports the idea of Canada joining with the United States in some form, even if it doesn’t exactly mean becoming the 51st state.

“It’s it makes total geo-strategic and geo-economic sense,” he said, excitedly.

The former investment banker and naval officer cites the Monroe Doctrine and naval theorist Alfred Mahan. The Monroe Doctrine, named after James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States, is the view that overseas powers have no right to hold or control territory in the Americas.

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Mahan was a theorist who had a large impact around the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His views on using navies to control choke points, canals and other strategic locations are at play in the new American view of wanting to ensure control of the Panama Canal, Greenland and Canada — especially the Arctic.

“The new great game of the 21st century is going to be the Arctic. It’s already a great power struggle between the Chinese Communist Party and the Russians up there. Canada’s former most secure border, your northern provinces are now your soft underbelly,” Bannon said.

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While in the Naval Academy, Bannon received a master’s degree in national security, a fact that becomes clear as he discusses the need for keeping China and Russia out of a Arctic region that he says Canada simply cannot defend.

“Don’t look at Canada separate from Greenland and from Panama, because it’s (part) of a whole piece, it’s about hemispheric defence,” he said.

Bannon says China especially has designs on the Arctic and is involved in what is currently a non-military battle with the United States and other countries for control.

“The Chinese Communist Party has been at war with the United States since May of 1989. (Chinese President Xi Jinping) said it, ‘The People’s War.’ They’re doing it through cyber, they’re doing it through political warfare. They’re doing through information warfare,” Bannon said, noting China’s political interference in Canada.

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“As badly as we’re infiltrated,  Canada is actually worse, and Trudeau exacerbated this. This is something the Canadian people got to wake up to. You’re losing your sovereignty as you speak.”

And on the Arctic front, China believes that it has the right to natural resource deposits in the region – in Canada’s territory – and has begun referring to itself as a near-Arctic nation. While he also makes an economic argument for Canada joining the United States, Bannon mainly focuses on the national security side, noting that despite Canada’s great military history, we are currently reliant on the Americans for our defence.

As he talks, though, he hinted that there are ways for the two countries to come closer without Canada becoming the 51st state.

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“The form of that is to be determined. Remember, President Trump is a master deal maker,” Bannon said. “Don’t doubt for a second that the man himself is, quite frankly, very obsessed with this.”

Canada is used to being ignored in Washington, right now we’re getting more attention than we’d like. Bannon noted while Trump could talk about anything, he focuses on what he values, which appears to be Canada.

Later that day, while signing executive orders and answering a journalist’s question about European taxes on American goods, Trump went off unprompted again on Canada.

“Canada has been very bad to us on trade, but now Canada is going to have to start paying up,” Trump said.

He complained about our lack of defence spending, how the United States provides Canada’s security and  the appearance of Chinese and Russian ships in our Arctic waters. It was like listening to Steve Bannon make his argument for why Canada and the United States should join forces.

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“I think Canada is going to be a very serious contender to be our 51st state,” Trump told reporters in the White House.

Trump’s musing about Canada becoming the 51st state may have started as a joke at Justin Trudeau’s expense. But it is clearly not a joke; the man is serious now.

Bannon offered some parting advice at the end of the interview.

“What the Canadian people would do is, number one, take this seriously, follow what President Trump is saying, and I think, get it on your national agenda and start having, you know, talk shows and conferences people are to be debating this,” he said.

If polling and the booing of anthems at hockey games is any indication, Canadians overwhelming reject this idea.

What we need to debate then is how do we become a serious country again that can defend its borders and coastlines. We need a plan to grow our economy that ensures we aren’t just a vassal state to Washington.

In other words, we need to start doing all the things we’ve been putting off for the last decade under the Trudeau government.

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