My guess: to weaken Canada's economy, limit Canada's international standing, bankrupt the sovereign state, cause rise of populism and voters thereof, have its people overthrow the government, then absorb the former country as a state to extract its natural resources, to fulfill manifest destiny.

Other than the current tariff narrative, it's fairly standard CIA play when we look at what they did to Latin America already.

You are overthinking this.

Donald Trump wants to make the USA bigger. It will put him in the history books. He also wants a lot of chaos so he can be bribed to stop(he won’t).

There is no master plan, just greed.

I am addressing directly why the Republicans want this, not why the current president wants this. Even if the current president changes, the Republicans will still pursue the annexation of Canada with financial interest.

In its current incarnation, Republicans simply want whatever Trump wants at the moment

I think you're overthinking this :)

Donald wants to bully anyone he can into submission; the requirements are designed to be obscene so that agreeing to them is akin to kissing the ring.

That and trying to get more willing sycophants installed in power whenever possible (a little gem hidden in the latest batch of requirements: Canada should stop protecting the French language status. If you know anything about Canada, you know that agreeing to this would be a political suicide for the party in power).

> There is no master plan, just greed.

This is a thought terminating cliche. This is just the latest move in a long term strategic effort to undermine Canada's sovereignty. Zoom out, and that in it of itself is part of an even broader strategic effort to reorganize alliances which built the world order.

Everywhere there are criticisms of Trump, his administration, and their goals, there is always this commentary which not only fails to serve as an accurate representation of present situations, but more importantly, it serves to distract from the chronology of events which led us here, blinding the broader conversation from creating inferences of what will happen next which stifles the conversation from its most natural next reply: What are they actually doing, and what do we do if it does not benefit us?

You are underthinking this.

Canadians may be nice but we are also petty and proud. It’s hard for us to win against a big bully, but we won’t be pushed around either.

Everyone is going to lose here.

>Why did Republicans pick a fight with Canada?

>Everyone is going to lose here.

I believe in sovereign states well enough to have 100% respect for Canada-first policies as well as America-first in the US.

Things worked so well for so many decades with much lesser rebalancing, that the only explanation would be some serious defect arising that was not there until recent years or days.

This is just Trump's way of telling Americans, if they can't afford to pay way more going forward for everything into the foreseeable future, toilet paper is the least of their worries.

He doesn't have to detail it out loud, but there are plenty of good old American corncobs which have fallen into disuse for this purpose, and it wouldn't be nearly as unpleasant as it was in the outhouse days.

Except for those who may not be able to afford a rising water bill at some point :(

In the end it confirms his idea of "winning" amounts to shit on a stick.

Because they're sabotaging the country from within. In this case, they're alienating (former?) allies.

Trump can't win anywhere else, so he's trying for a win here.

Let's hope victory against Canada looks better than victory against Iran else we'll be paying $10/roll for toilet paper as well as $4/gal at the pump.

I think it’s fairly well established that Trump treats trade as a zero sum, single play, game.

China is the long term winner here.

The cost of conflict versus collaboration or even competition means everyone loses in the big picture. The waste of resources is immense.