Out of curiosity, what international law or world opinion do you think Trump feels particularly beholden to on this? I’m not being passive aggressive here; I’m genuinely interested in your thoughts on how much those things would constrain him.
I see two possibilities. There's probably more but I'll stick to these two.
He can try cajole and convince us to come over. However, like I say, it would take years to sort out the minutiae of treaties, minerals and natural resources, government, payments, economy, our place in the Republic. Even then, I'd expect there would be a number of Canadians not quite enamoured with the whole plan that end up taking shots at convoys from overpasses. Laws. Do we keep our own, go wholesale into theirs or work out a hybrid. I would expect a decade at least, or more for a transition. Which could well fall apart over successive governments during negotiation. We would have to get over a national referendum first. Trump would be long out of the picture.
The other choice would be covered under the Crime of Aggression in International Law. It includes annexation. I'm not a law whiz but if I understand it at all, it's basically a UN show. Does it have teeth? Doesn't seem to have. It's the same law that would apply to Ukraine and Russia, at the moment, but doesn't seem to have had much effect on that so far. I don't have faith in the UN to be forcefull or proactive.
Would Trump flaunt their authority? Maybe, maybe not. Could his ego stand the vast majority of the world being against him. Putting world sanctions on the US. Making them a pariah on the world stage. I much doubt most of the US population would go for it anyway.
Like I say though, either scenario takes time and Trump doesn't have the time for either scenario. He can be as loud and boisterous, table thumping and threatening as he wants. It means nothing, really. What matters is that we maintain our resolve. For every Canadian put out of work, we put two of theirs out of work. Their economy is no better than ours and most of their workforce is also paycheck to paycheck. Any disruption we create will hurt them.
Hence why I'm not overly concerned with talks of takeovers, invasions and annexation. Come in high and negotiate down.
There is a third possibility. Trump has a special place in his black heart for trudeau and his crew. They are probably pretty high on his list of people he wants to fuck over big time. I doubt he wants to hand them the win for all, or any of this. Probably why he asked about the time of the election. Now, he won't hand it to Poliviere on a silver platter, but he might not be as hard nosed either.
He probably has a looping tape of trudeau's last blubbering 'I feel your pain' speech the other day.