President Trump likes to muse about his plans to annex Canada. While proclaiming his love for the Canadian people, he has also threatened the nation with “economic force.” “The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last month. “This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear.”
Some of this talk is probably just trolling; politicians understand the utility of baiting their opponents into outraged arguments. But Canadians seem to be taking Trump seriously.
Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Trump’s threats “a real thing” and predicted Canadians would fight back hard, boycotting U.S. products and shunning travel to American destinations. (Preliminary data suggest he may be right.) (Nadine Yousif, “Trudeau Says Trump Threat to Annex Canada ‘Is a Real Thing,’” BBC, Feb. 7, 2025; and John Grant, “Canada-U.S. Aviation: Airlines Respond to Weakening Demand,” OAG Aviation Worldwide Ltd. blog (Mar. 26, 2025).)
Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, has struck a similarly defiant note. “The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over,” he said on March 27. “It’s clear the US is no longer a reliable partner.” (Max Saltman, “Old U.S.-Canada Relationship Is ‘Over,’ Warns Canadian Prime Minister,” CNN, Mar. 28, 2025.)
If Canadians are taking Trump seriously, it’s understandable: They’ve been down this road before. The United States has had designs on Canada for centuries, stretching back to the earliest days of American nationhood. More to the point, this isn’t the first time Americans have weaponized tariffs in the service of annexation: U.S. political leaders tried it in the 1890s, too. (Kristofer Allerfeldt, “How the U.S. Has Tried to Annex Canada Before — And Why Some Canadians Wanted to Become American,” The Conversation, Mar. 10, 2025.)
McKinley Tariff
Trump talks wistfully about the high tariffs of the late 19th century, insisting that they helped propel massive growth and widespread prosperity. In particular, he’s a widely noted fan of the McKinley Tariff Act, a law passed in 1890 and named for its chief sponsor, Rep. William McKinley (then a lawmaker from Ohio but well on his way to winning the 1896 presidential election). (F.W. Taussig, “The McKinley Tariff Act,” 1(2) Econ. J. 326 (June 1891).)
In broad strokes, the McKinley tariff raised import duties on goods from countries across the globe, boosting the average tariff rate to about 50 percent. But as historian Marc-William Palen has observed, the law took specific aim at Canada.
“To pressure Canada into joining the U.S., the McKinley tariff explicitly declined to make an exception for Canadian products,” Palen wrote in a piece for Time’s “Made by History” column. “Republicans hoped that Canadians, who were becoming ever more reliant on the U.S. market, would be eager to become the 45th state to avoid the punishing tariffs.”
By 1890 Canada and the United States had been fighting over trade for decades. A conflict over fishing had even produced some low-grade violence, with fishermen from each nation coming to blows in 1878. “Today, America and Canada fight over dairy and aluminum,” observed historian David Singerman in a piece for The Atlantic. “In the late 19th century, they fought over frozen herring — and these trade wars meant real violence.”
Coercing Canada
President Benjamin Harrison’s secretary of state, James G. Blaine, had a plan for ending these conflicts: By saddling Canadian imports with heavy new tariffs, the United States could force Canada to seek American statehood.
At the time, Canada was still a British colony, albeit self-governing since the 1860s. But Blaine hoped to end London’s control over Canada, declaring that he was “teetotally opposed to giving the Canadians the sentimental satisfaction of waving the British Flag,” while simultaneously profiting from liberal trade benefits with the United States.
Blaine saw the 1890 tariff, which he helped draft, as a powerful weapon in the battle for annexation. Faced with heavy tariffs on exports to the United States, Canada would seek the most obvious solution: admission to the Union.
The British were not amused. The two countries were locked in a long-running struggle for economic dominance, making the U.S. bid for Canada especially galling. One London trade organization called the 1890 tariff an “outrage on civilization,” especially given the transparent effort to force Canada into statehood. Such a move would be disastrous for Canada. “If the tariff act’s objective ‘really be (as the Canadian Prime Minister, Sir John Macdonald, thinks) to force the United States lion and the Canadian lamb to lie down together, this can only be accomplished by the lamb being inside the lion,’” Palen recounted, quoting British Liberal Lyon Playfair.
In fact, the McKinley tariff didn’t prompt Canadians to seek annexation. It had the opposite effect. “It backfired immensely on the United States,” observed Canadian historian Craig Baird in comments to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. “Not only did it increase prices for people in the United States, but Canada really started to kind of join hands and become more nationalistic, and we aligned ourselves much more with Britain.”
Trade with Britain soared in the immediate wake of the McKinley tariff. Some American manufacturers also began moving production facilities over the border in a bid to avoid Canada’s retaliatory import duties. And perhaps most important of all, the 1890 tariff solidified cultural and political ties between London and its self-governing colony. As Palen explained:
Rather than compelling Canadians to seek annexation, the tariff stirred “love for Queen, flag, and country,” according to George T. Denison, president of the British Empire League in Canada. The majority of Canadians saw the McKinley tariff as part of “a conspiracy” to “betray this country into annexation.” They were having none of it. Their cultural and political ties with the British Empire, as well as their anger over the attempted coercion, proved stronger.
On balance, the McKinley tariff was an own goal for U.S. policymakers like Blaine. “Canadian Minister of Trade and Commerce Mackenzie Bowell happily informed his colleagues in the Canadian Senate that ‘the McKinley Bill, instead of destroying the trade of this country, has only diverted it from the United States to England,’” Palen wrote. “Our neighbors are cutting off their own noses to spite us.”
Political Pitfalls
Critics of the American quest for annexation sometimes exaggerate the scale of the U.S. defeat. Baird, for instance, explained Republican losses in the 1890 midterm elections — in which McKinley himself lost his seat in the House of Representatives — as a direct result of the tariff debacle.
“It was a huge factor because in the United States, farmers were struggling and a lot of people were seeing higher prices for things,” Baird contended. “When the Republicans lost the election, a lot of the newspapers did put the ‘McKinley tariff’ as the biggest factor.”
Perhaps. But McKinley’s defeat is probably best explained by other factors. “In 1890, McKinley did not lose his seat in Congress because the electorate rejected his policies,” wrote Aroop Mukharji in Foreign Affairs. “He was, instead, gerrymandered out of office.”
Indeed, McKinley’s defeat in 1890 set the stage for his rapid political ascent. In 1891 Ohio voters elected him governor, returning him for a second term in 1893. Three years later, he won his race for the White House.
Obviously, McKinley’s tariff policies were not an insurmountable drag on his career. They instead may have helped propel his political rise; while many Americans opposed high tariffs, others welcomed them. The nation was deeply divided on the question of protectionism.
Still, the annexation ambitions of the 1890s might serve as a cautionary tale, at least for anyone entertaining dreams of Canadian annexation. “While the United States is an important trading partner, they’re not the only trading partner, and we can definitely find other ways to trade,” Baird told his CBC interviewer when asked what the 1890 episode can teach us today. “And it might even be easier now because things can be transported a lot faster. There is much more of a global trading network. So we have many more options available to us.”