SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: Trump speaks openly of absorbing Canada as a "51st state," pairs the threat with punishing tariffs

https://x.com/RezaNasri1/status/2091434518959833523

Trump speaks openly of absorbing Canada as a "51st state," pairs the threat with punishing tariffs and dangles relief in exchange for what amounts to Canada's independence. It's a clear attempt to purchase a nation's sovereignty by holding its own economy hostage.

The same logic drives his campaign against Iran. Where Canada faces tariffs, Iran faces an imposed war, an economic blockade, and secondary sanctions designed to sever it from the world, all to force Tehran into surrendering rights that are inalienable and sovereign. And the appetite is now openly territorial: Trump has vowed to declare the Strait of Hormuz "a territory of the United States," even posting a map that brands this Iranian and Omani waterway "new U.S. territory." It is the very same reflex behind his bid to absorb Greenland and his "51st state" talk toward Canada.

Here is where the hypocrisy begins. Canada, itself a victim of Trump's affront to sovereignty, has backed his pressure campaign against Iran, sanctioning and isolating a state subjected to the very coercion Ottawa denounces when it is aimed at itself. It is a cringeworthy performance: fury at one's own violation, complicity in another's.

Europe repeats the act. The same governments squirming under Trump's designs on Greenland, his interference in their elections and immigration debates, his demands over NATO burden-sharing, and his extraterritorial secondary sanctions fall conspicuously silent when identical illegality is directed at Iran.

There is a precedent for this selective courage. Western powers once gathered in Munich, persuaded themselves that another Western predator could be appeased with more concessions, and learned, too late, that appetite grows with feeding.

History already wrote this chapter. They are simply refusing to read it.

@MarkJCarney

@kajakallas