As America becomes embroiled in political disaster, Canadians may think they are immune, but they’re wrong
Illustration by Sage Blackwell.
The inauguration of Donald J. Trump as America’s 47th president took place on Jan. 20, 2025. The returning president has wasted no time implementing sweeping executive actions that have flipped the country’s political system upside-down.
As an international student from America living in Canada, this issue could not be more imperative to me — Canadians should not feel that they are immune, watching from the sidelines as their neighbour struggles to stay afloat.
Besides the humanitarian impacts of Trump’s policies towards people living in the United States, it is imperative that Canadian residents understand the drastic effects they will experience in their everyday lives due to Trump’s actions as well. These policies will inevitably disrupt, and heavily affect, Canada’s own political sphere through the “spillover effect”.
Here’s what you should know.
President Trump’s day-one actions can be summed up as a deluge of unconstitutional orders and the rapid implementation of dumpster-fire MAGA policies. Although it can be humorous to joke about, millions inside and outside the U.S. will suffer at the hands of these changes. Canada will see the most change in three fields: border control and asylum seekers, environmental issues, and economic tariffs.
Within a few hours of his induction as U.S. president, Trump signed into law an executive action declaring a national emergency over the border. Although the order focused primarily on the southern U.S. border, the president followed this action by implementing a mandate through the United States Northern Command, which is the military command responsible for the Canadian, Mexican, U.S. and islands near the Gulf of Mexico’s Borders. This mandate orders the military group to “seal the borders.”.
Without details, we can’t be sure what this will look like, but Canadians should certainly expect to see a change in the operations of the Canada-U.S. border.
On top of this mandate, Trump suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program in America (USRAP). This will likely result in a large influx of asylum seekers applying to and entering Canada, which may result in a strain on the country’s resources.
At the start of his second term, the president also pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement for the second time. Besides the worldwide environmental turmoil and irreversible impacts on climate change this will cause, Canada’s de-carbonization efforts will be thrown for a loop too. Canada’s steel and manufacturing industries rely on, and are directly tied to, American production. Projects such as Canada’s EV battery development heavily rely on North American electric car production, and with Trump’s renewed aversion towards electric vehicles causing his reversal of tailpipe emission regulations, the economic outlook for those projects is not bright.
Secondly, Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda will inevitably cause mass damage to Canada’s oil industry. The expected steep incline in American oil production, and corresponding drop in oil prices, may threaten the economic viability and environmental stability of many of Canada’s oil sands projects.
Only making things worse, in terms of economic spillover, are the tariffs that Trump’s cabinet plans to place on Canadian exports. Twenty per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP) is exported through the southern border, which adds up to approximately 1.9 billion dollars in daily goods and services. Despite this, Trump has signalled his intent to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian exports, which would be a massive blow to the entire economic system.
While sitting in the Oval Office, talking to the press and signing executive orders following his inauguration, President Trump stated: “We’re thinking in terms of 25 per cent on Mexico and Canada because they’re allowing vast numbers of people — Canada is a very bad abuser also — to come in, and fentanyl to come in.”
Without an exact idea of when these tariffs may come into effect, Canadians can only prepare for the worst. Canada will likely retaliate by placing the same tariffs on America, which will only worsen trade relations. As a result, Canadians should also prepare for a smaller selection of American products in stores.
With these spillover effects and surely more to come, Canada may currently be able to laugh at the political state of their southern neighbour, but this won’t last. Over the next four years, the global impacts of President Trump’s election will only worsen, and Canada may gravitate into the line of fire faster than many Canadians believe.
As the people of the United States suffer, we call for empathy, hope, and power in numbers from the rest of the globe. We call for you, Canada, to care.
