Donald Trump’s desire to take over the U.S.’ northern neighbor conjures up important annexation lessons from history
May 2026
Historians may look back on Donald Trump one day and call him the “man of the century.”
The 19th century, that is.
His love for Ol’ Hickory—that Native American-hating Andrew Jackson—notwithstanding, Trump has two other 19th century fixations that keep him rooted in the 1800s.
At the start of his presidency, he made it clear: he has a thing for tariffs and their once-great proponent, William McKinley, the 25th president of the United States (1897-1901).
The second is his obsession with Canada.
That fixation is nothing new to Canadians who’ve always watched their southern neighbor with a jaded eye—especially back in the 19th century. They were never entirely certain that the U.S. would respect their border.
As the 250th anniversary of the U.S. nears, it’s worth recalling that the trouble with Canadians began with the Revolutionary War when Québec and Nova Scotia snubbed the American invitation to fight King George III.
Things went downhill from there.
1783’s Treaty of Paris ended the war but not the animosity between the two peoples, the Canadians and Americans.
War erupted again in 1812 with Americans invading Canada and hoping to kick the British out of North America. They burned the town of York, now Toronto.
The fledgling United States was no match for the British Canadian army who retaliated by burning Washington, D.C. Most Canadians consider that fight a victory against Yankee invaders.
That would be the last time open hostilities broke out between Canada and the United States in the 19th century. Still, British North America remained a geographic irritation for many Americans, including men like newspaper editors James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald and John L. Sullivan, the journalist who coined the term “Manifest Destiny” in 1845.
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Manifest Destiny was Sullivan’s divine call for American expansionism across the North American continent. That included Canada.
Sullivan urged Canadians to break from “their present colonial relation to the little island three thousand miles across the Atlantic” and be annexed by the U.S. This might be called “Manifest Destiny North.”
In 1849, Bennett was duped into believing Manifest Destiny North might become a reality after a group of angry English-speakers in Montreal issued an “Annexation Manifesto,” sparking the Annexation Crisis of 1849-1850.
Addressed “To the People of Canada,” the Manifesto suggested, among other things, a “union” that “would render Canada a field for American capital.” The authors believed Canada’s economy was completely starved of cash, investments, and resources—and that joining the U.S. would open the floodgates for American wealthy elites to invest in the Canadian market.
Sounds like something a more articulate Donald Trump would say.
Bennett, who was, at the time, one of the most powerful newspaper editors in the world, hated the British and pounced.
“Let us be practically understood in our views,” Bennett wrote, “We don’t deny that annexation to this country [U.S.] seems to be the natural destiny of both Canada and Cuba.”
His correspondent in Montreal noted: “The parent [Great Britain] is growing old—the child [United States] is gaining greater strength, with advancing years. All this portends that in a short time the stars and stripes will be the dominant flag over the whole of the New World.”
As it turned out, once the British Parliament finally paid some attention to those angry English-speaking businessmen in Montreal, the “Annexation Crisis” came to an end.
But the dream of annexing Canada did not.
Take Bennett again. He suggested before the U.S. Civil War that Canada would make a good consolation prize if Southern states seceded.
A consolation prize!
When the Southern U.S. states did secede, the provinces of Canada instead came together to form a self-ruling nation as a result of the Civil War. (Canada is a confederation of provinces that formed in 1867.)
And now, Trump—emboldened by an imperialist world view—sometimes echoes Sullivan’s Manifest Destiny North trope and thinks Canada should be HIS—or at least the property of the U.S.
But Canadians did not then, nor will they now, accede to his irrational whims about becoming a 51st state.
As for tariffs, another history book would tell Trump that McKinley eventually discovered that tariffs didn’t actually have the desired populist results—because voters came to view them as a benefit for the wealthy. The Republican Party, back then, would lose its majority in Congress following their passage.
Today, partly as a result of the tariffs, many Canadians won’t buy American goods or travel to the U.S. (travel to the U.S. is down more than 42%, according to cellphone data complied by researchers at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities). And their government now wants to break its 20th century economic marriage with America so it can rekindle 19th century flirtations in Europe and elsewhere.
So, in an odd way, Trump’s 19th century whims ARE coming true.
Just not in the way he intended.
Brian Gabrial can be reached at bgabrial@gmail.com. Gabrial is a longtime journalist who, from 2004 to 2018, served as a professor of journalism at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. It was there that he began his long-term study of “Manifest Destiny North” as it emerged in the 19th century press, illustrating the often-antagonistic relationship between the U.S. and Canada.
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