Trump threats stoking fear of invasion among Manitobans

So, you’re at a bus stop along with four other people.

There’s a six-foot-seven-inch-tall man with huge boots and a hard hat, two women carrying lunch bags and wearing scarves (one scarf is red, the other green), and a small 20-something-year-old man with a battered backpack and running shoes. You are all waiting for the same bus, and you’re each getting off the bus at a different, but sequential stops.

Of the five, which one of you is …

No, this isn’t one of those irritating and frustrating word problems that you had to deal with in high school math. It’s not about which of the five is most likely to reach the front door of their workplace first, or anything like that.

Instead, it’s an equally frustrating problem with diplomacy, bad neighbours and the damage being done to a friendly relationship that stretches back for more than 100 years.

Among the five people waiting for a bus, a recent Probe/Free Press survey suggests one of that number of Manitobans believes the U.S. will invade us in the next two years.

More than two-thirds of Manitobans would find that possibility unlikely (48 per cent would find it very unlikely), but 18 per cent believe it is somewhat likely, and four per cent feel it is very likely.

That, more than anything else, is a tragedy.

The results of the poll may seem pragmatic to us; U.S. President Donald Trump is both threatening and mercurial, and no one in the U.S. military seems capable or even interested in trying to put a cap on his excesses.

Cooler heads — among them, experts who study military strategy — suggest that any American invasion is unlikely, but it’s hard not to feel a frisson of disquiet as Trump stomps around boasting about U.S. military strength, calling Canada the 51st state, and pronouncing, like he has done in the case of Cuba, that he can “do whatever I want” with that country.

And we’re not alone: in the last few weeks, it’s been clear that other countries have equally serious concerns.

According to a report on Denmark’s public broadcaster, DR, the Danish government took threats from Trump about taking over Greenland so seriously that they sent troops and explosives to blow up runways in Greenland in the event of a U.S. military invasion, and stockpiled blood supplies to treat their wounded soldiers. (Trump repeated his ongoing threats to take over Greenland last week in a thinly veiled attempt to blackmail European nations into agreeing to send their military assets to help open and police the Strait of Hormuz, after yet another attack by Trump on a foreign nation, Iran, went awry.)

Those same poll results should be shared with our neighbours to the south, just to make abundantly clear the damage their president is doing — damage that will not be simply, easily or quickly repaired. Americans have already noticed the way Canadians are cutting back on purchasing American alcohol, and are limiting travel — particularly vacation travel — to the United States.

It might be educational for them to realize that a significant part of the Canadian population views them so poorly as to see them as potential invaders.

The sad part is that none of this was in any way necessary: if it wasn’t for the capriciousness of Trump, America’s undisputed disruptor-in-chief, Canada and the United States would be what they have been for years — friends, allies, and major trading partners where both countries reap the benefits of working together.

A U.S. invasion is something no one at your bus stop should have to worry about.

» Winnipeg Free Press