Globalization Studies professor (emeritus) Anthony Hall of the Looking Out at the World From Canada Substack explores a range of viewpoints on Trump's threats to invade and annex Canada, and provides historical context.

Transcript selection:

Welcome to the Truth Jihad podcast. I'm Kevin Barrett doing this in audio since 2006 bringing you thoughts from folks around the world who are thinking outside the proverbial box, but a little bit better than Trump is with his lunatic real estate schemes. So I'm back right now with an old friend and colleague, Dr. Anthony Hall. Welcome, Tony. How's looking out at the world from Canada?

Oh, it's a really cold and snowy today. It's a classic Canadian winter day here in Southern Alberta, where I can see the mountains of Montana off on the horizon.

Sounds beautiful. It was a cold day by Morocco standards today, but not cold enough to keep me from running on the beach and swimming in the Mediterranean. But don't be too jealous. You've got a great country, and maybe you can fight off Trump and keep it.

So Trump is saying he wants to invade Greenland and Canada and genocide Gaza. He wants to own the genocide instead of making Bibi own the genocide. Is this man insane? Does Canada have to worry?

Well, Trump has been talking about Canada as the 51st state. And that gets us thinking. That's a pretty radical thing to say.

It's a big state.

And what about having 10 states? Or what about one province joining and the others not? There's all kinds of possible combinations here. I'm now on the third article I've written about it. I find that some thoughtful people in Canada are saying we should join the United States and would like to join the United States and make some compelling arguments.

If we did join the United States, my suggestion for Netanyahu and Trump would be that Trump make Israel, the area controlled by Israel, the 52nd state and annex the whole thing like he wants to do with Canada or is thinking of doing with Canada, including the Palestinians. They can have the oil and he can make Israel the 52nd state of the USA. All people would be citizens of the United States on an equal basis.

But with this situation in Canada—much of United States is on the land of Canada. In Wisconsin, when you were in Wisconsin, you saw that all the names around you, many of them, were Aboriginal and French. New France was deep into what is now the United States. And Trump seems to have no awareness of the history we share. And that history, of course, is much older than the United States. Canada has a number of incarnations. Canada didn't start in 1867. The name Canada came out in the early 1500s from Jacques Cartier. And sometimes New France was known as Canada. And Canada has been, you know, Upper Canada, Lower Canada, the United Province of the Canada.

My sense is people imagine that the United States is sort of the model and Canada is just a paler United States. And I think a lot of Canadians probably look at that as because people don't know a lot of history. So I started by thinking I would tell some Canadian history to explain some of the phenomena unfolding now.

Like this isn't the first time the United States has shown interest in annexing Canada. There was a plan to invade Canada in the 1930s in the era of Franklin Roosevelt. And it was on the books and taken seriously. The idea was to absorb Canada.

Alaska was created in 1867 as a prelude to ingesting Canada. And now we're seeing a repeat.

Maybe Canada should invade Alaska, get some help from Putin.

Well, for myself, I would like to be allied with Russia rather than NATO. And I think Canada would be a good partner, a good ally of Russia.

Well, there you go. That's a great idea. You guys, together, could definitely take Alaska. But you're going to make Putin line up his submarines with those torpedoes that create 800-foot radioactive tidal waves and get those guys all set up and aimed at the two U.S.-American coastlines. And then it's a done deal. Alaska will drop right into your lap.

Jean Chrétien, a former Canadian Liberal party prime minister, who refused to go into Iraq and join the coalition of the willing in 2003, called Trump's words “unprecedented threats and unacceptable insults.” And that's a pretty serious language coming from a former head of state to a current head of state.

You know, the hard news is, it's about Israel all along. It's Israel first. He doesn't have that much time from here on. And if he wants to do anything like the plan he laid out yesterday, that's what his administration is all about. So why not have Israel as part of the United States?

Well, let me just say, Tony, that Palestine is the capital of the Islamic nation, which is the real nation. This Morocco I'm in, and every other Muslim-majority country, are just imaginary little provinces. The real nation I live in is the Islamic nation, and Palestine is our capital, and we are going to get it back, and the Jews are just going to have to deal with it.

Full transcript available at my Substack.

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Canadian Prof. Anthony Hall on Trump's Invasion Threats