7 hours ago, Patong2021 said:

Until Trump came along,Canada wasn't investing in protecting its borders. Same for Greenland.

They were, just not as much as the US defense industry would like.

5 hours ago, stevenl said:

They were, just not as much as the US defense industry would like.

No they were not. The Canadian parliamentary review and Auditor General's report stated that Canada was not defending its arctic territory. Until recently, the country did not even have marine vessels of patroling its lower ice covered waters off of Newfoundland and northern BC. It still does not have full arctic capable vessels like the Russians have.

Source:

1. Senate Standing Committee on Na-tional Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs, Arctic Security Under Threat, June 2023, p. 25

2. Auditor General of Canada, Report 6 to the Parliament of Canada, Arctic Waters Surveillance, 2022.

3. Standing Committee on National Defence, A Secure and Sovereign Arctic, April 2023.

Of Canada's 390 aircraft in total, only 40% are serviceable.

Of the 80 fighter patrol aircraft in the inventory, only 30-40 are operation ready. That's 30 aircraft or so to protect the second largest land mass in the world. This is why the RCAF has to have the F-35s it has on order nd arriving soon and cannot switch to the Gripens which are 3-5 years away from a possible delivery

6 hours ago, Alan Zweibel said:

And what has that got to do with your claim that Trump wasn't serious about taking over Greenland? What is that got to do with his threat of imposing new tariffs? You still think he's bluffing about those tariffs?

The tariffs have not been applied yet have they? Even at 10% they are avoidable. The tariffs only apply to some countries. Because of the absence of trade borders in the EU, if the goods are re-exported through Spain, or Portugal or Belgium the tariffs do not apply. This type of paperwork magic is done every day. Threatening to apply tariffs on only a few EU countries isn't going to work and is a line in the sand that the US should not have crossed.

Threatening tariffs was not a smart move and the people who came up with the strategy; Peter Navarro, Dan DiMicco and Steve Moore occupy their own deluded space in the magical world of fringe conservative politics.