The rules of the Canada-U.S. diplomatic game

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/03/2025 (231 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With U.S. President Donald Trump once again fully ensconced in the White House, Canada finds itself in a particularly precarious position. Like his first term, Trump is imposing high tariffs on Canadian exports, pressuring Ottawa to spend billions more on national defence and angling to kick-start renegotiation of the USMCA trade pact.

While the task at hand may appear daunting, one should not discount the fact that Canada does have some means of defending itself. But it is always helpful to remember that Canada needs the U.S. more than the U.S. actually needs Canada.

With that in mind, here are a number of diplomatic rules and bilateral tactics that the Canadian government — irrespective of political party stripe — should bear in mind.

1.) First, it’s always a good idea for a Canadian prime minister to have cordial relations with the current occupant of the White House. They don’t have to be best buddies, mind you. But it helps if a Canadian prime minister has a strong personal relationship with any U.S. president. The last thing that Canada needs is a Trump who refuses to pick up the phone, despises our top political leaders and regularly excludes the Canadian prime minister from the list of world leaders to consult.

2.) It is important for Canadian officials, particularly when they are petitioning Washington to take action to resolve a bilateral irritant in our favour, to emphasize how doing so is also in the long-term interests of the United States. Simply put, we need to give the Americans a reason to say yes — particularly given the fact that individual Canadians have no electoral clout in the U.S.

3.) Canada should always be mindful of the fact that to get something, you sometimes need to give something in return. Accordingly, Ottawa should strive to find ways — possibly in the international arena or within multilateral institutions like the United Nations — to make itself useful or valuable to the United States. Of course, that doesn’t mean taking on a subservient or satellite-like role — though Canadian officials should look for ways to advance shared interests and values abroad.

4.) Canada should not forget to focus its lobbying efforts on both the White House and the U.S. Congress. It is always advantageous to have friends and allies in Congress, including the backing of key chairs and staffers on important congressional committees, to sometimes nudge along an unco-operative executive branch.

5.) The process also works best if Canada can minimize the involvement of recalcitrant provincial premiers. In short, they should be told to refrain from thoughtlessly inserting themselves into Canada-U.S. affairs (unless they agree to be loyal Team Canada players). Oftentimes, their engagement only serves to complicate matters, to undermine a unified posture and to open up the possibility for U.S. negotiators to adopt a “divide and conquer” strategy.

6.) Additionally, Canada needs to be very careful about not being seen as directly interfering in U.S. electoral politics. Simply put, Canadian politicians at all levels should not be seeking political alliances with opponents or critics of a sitting U.S. president. Furthermore, such an ill-considered strategy runs the risk of not only backfiring badly, but it could also push the White House into returning the favour by insinuating itself into Canadian politics (as then-president John Kennedy did against then-prime minister John Diefenbaker during the early 1960s).

7.) The Canadian government needs to be laser-focused on lining up allies or “champions” in the U.S. to advocate strongly on Canada’s behalf. Those supporters would include Americans (and Canadians) drawn from the business community, NGOs, think tanks, and friendly state/local governments. Undertaking a thoughtful media strategy to bring onside, or to “sensitize,” the U.S. public to Canadian issues can sometimes be helpful as well.

8.) Canada should also seek to avoid public or “megaphone diplomacy” (except as a last resort) in its bilateral dealings with the U.S. Playing politics by pandering to the TV cameras or simply choosing to score some cheap political points at home by tweaking the nose of the American eagle is mostly a recipe for raising the ire of the U.S. side and potentially undermining the overall negotiation process.

9.) In some of our dealings with the U.S., Canada should consider whether Mexico might also be helpful in pushing the Americans in the right direction. By demonstrating a common front and strategically joining forces with Mexico, Ottawa could, if done carefully, be in a stronger position to pressure Washington into altering its various negotiating positions or domestic policy initiatives.

10.) Lastly, Canada should, in most situations, scrupulously avoid the practice of “linkage politics” (i.e., if you remove the tariffs, I’ll drop our objections to the Line 5 oil pipeline interruption). In terms of Canada-U.S. relations, Canada has far more at stake — especially from an economic standpoint — than the United States does. The simple fact is that Canada would only run the risk of getting “out linked” by the Americans.

Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.