Trump’s actions in Venezuela suggest Canada is ‘on the menu,’ says former UN envoy – National

American President that of Donald Trump recent actions in Venezuela and its overall strategy for Western Hemisphere should serve as a warning to all Canadians and demand a more comprehensive response from political leaders, says Canada’s former ambassador to the United Nations.

Bob Rae, who completed his five-year term as ambassador last November, said in an interview with Global News that the United States under Trump rejects multilateralism and prefers to assert dominance over the hemisphere, without “any notion of legality.”

“Basically, the Americans are telling us, ‘We’ll do everything we can, and who’s going to stop us?’ “, he said. “Which allows them to take over any country that they believe stands in their way.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore. It’s a new ball game and we need to understand the consequences.”

Trump had already raised fears in Canada and elsewhere with its new national security strategy which seeks to restore and update the Monroe Doctrine, a 200-year-old foreign policy statement which envisioned American domination of the Western Hemisphere and was used to justify American interventions in Latin America for over a century.

The capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife by US forces this weekend – as well as Trump’s subsequent threats against GreenlandColombia and Cuba – underlined the reality of this strategy.

While Trump hasn’t similarly revived his threats to make Canada the 51st U.S. state, Rae said that doesn’t mean Canadians should rest easy.

“We’re on the menu,” he said. “If you don’t think we’re on the menu just because he didn’t mention the words ’51st State,’ I think that’s really missing the boat on what this administration is all about.”

He pointed to comments made Monday to CNN by Trump’s deputy chief of staff and top adviser Stephen Miller — who at one point said “the future of the free world depends on America’s ability to assert ourselves and our interests without apology” — as well as a U.S. State Department social media post that declared “this is OUR hemisphere” as further evidence of the Trump administration’s mindset.

At the very least, Rae and other experts say, Trump’s strategy calls into question the sovereignty of Canada and other U.S. neighbors over their own national interests, security and critical resources.

“It looks like we’re on the cusp of moving from being a sovereign neighbor to becoming a small appendage of the U.S. resource sector,” Fen Osler Hampson, a professor of international affairs at Carleton University, said in an interview.

As the United States seeks to take control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves following Maduro’s capture, Hampson says Canada’s own energy infrastructure is on the table, as are critical mineral reserves, Arctic resources and “anything else the United States deems important to its national security.”

“The United States is going to put us under enormous pressure, frankly, to follow their lead when it comes to China, and they’re going to look very carefully at the kinds of investments that other countries are making in our own natural resources,” he said.

“We’re going to be under Washington’s thumb whether we like it or not.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters Tuesday in Paris, where he was meeting with European allies over Ukraine, that “a functioning, uncorrupted Venezuelan economy” that produces more oil will be “more stable for the Western Hemisphere.”

Canadian oil and energy exports will remain “competitive” within this framework, he added.

Carney has previously said Canada will look for ways to “compete” with the United States on international trade amid increasingly difficult free trade negotiations.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told NBC News on Sunday that the administration “will not allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operations for the adversaries, competitors and rivals of the United States.”

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Carney did not directly criticize Tuesday the US operation that captured Maduro, whose removal Carney said was “good news” and “creates the possibility of a democratic transition in Venezuela.”

He commented directly on Trump’s assertion that the United States “needs” Greenland.affirming that the future of the Danish territory must be decided by its people and that Canada is doing its part to increase NATO security in the Arctic.

Foreign policy experts told Global News that world leaders are likely reluctant to criticize Trump directly, for fear of angering a “volatile White House.” This is especially true for Canada as it faces delicate negotiations to renew the Canada-United States-Mexico Free Trade Agreement (CUSMA) this summer.

Rae said a more forceful rebuke of Trump’s foreign policy strategy was needed.

“We think…maybe if we don’t say anything, maybe he won’t notice us. And that’s reckless,” he said.

“We must rise to the occasion of Canadians by clearly explaining to them the nature of the threat that weighs directly on our integrity and our sovereignty, but also the threat that weighs on our prosperity and our well-being. »

All Canadian citizens, in turn, Rae added, “have an obligation to engage in this conversation now” about Canada’s future as an independent country.

This means broadening the debate beyond ongoing trade negotiations to the broader question of “our existence.”

“Americans are saying things that undermine our future and dictating our future in a way that puts us in an impossible position,” he said. “And we don’t say anything about it. It’s the silence that needs to be broken.”

Hampson said silence on Venezuela also undermines Canada and Europe’s ability to condemn Russia for its war in Ukraine, or China for threatening Taiwan, under the same standards of international law that he says the United States just violated.

He said Carney was right to seek stronger ties with Europe and that only a united front would help push back US imperialism.

“A world that is going to be divided into spheres of influence…dominated by the United States, Russia and China, each claiming veto power over its neighbors and over its resources, is profoundly detrimental to middle powers like Canada,” he said.

“It’s going to be very important to stick together. Otherwise, we stand apart.”

—With files from Eric Sorensen and Bryan Mullan of Global