alt Hacker NewsI'd say that the cultural links are so strong that any actual accounting for trade imbalance is just not worth thinking about.
Some things are bigger than money.
... which, come to think of it, is something that the current administration doesn't understand, at least from a "personal net worth" standpoint, and explains why this is happening to begin with.
That's one thing that I find so confusing about this. Even if we assume that the administration genuinely doesn't care and does want to annex/culturally subjugate Canada, it's really not easy to separate the two cultures and escalating this to a certain degree is going to prompt domestic backlash.
I was born in America. About half of my ancestors lived in Canada on both sides of my family, I know my Canadian cousins, I spent time in Canada growing up/was taught Canadian history as well as American history, I have a Canadian education and half of my professional network is Canadian, etc. I'm eligible for dual citizenship and am pursuing it now, as are other members of my family, whereas we never bothered before because the separation never seemed to matter. With the recent change in Canadian citizenship laws, I'd estimate at least 25% of the Great Lakes population is eligible for dual citizenship at this point.
One of my parents and some of my siblings are Ojibwe/Anishinaabe. My paternal cousins are all French Catholic. (My dad's parents were Protestant but my aunt married into an old French Catholic family and converted.)
I don't even really know how I would separate out the two nations' influence, and that's true of a lot of people, especially those of us whose families have lived here since before America and Canada existed.