Towards an alliance between the EU and Canada

BarcelonaHopefully, the history books of the future will record the date of this Thursday, September 17, 2026, as the day the foundation stone was laid for the alliance between the European Union and Canada. The excellent reception of the speech by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney before the European Parliament invites optimism, as does the angry reaction of Donald Trump, who has once again threatened trade reprisals. The fact is that Trump's expansionist policy, which has stated that he wants to incorporate Canada and Greenland into the United States, mixed with his neighborhood bully style and catastrophic decisions for the global economy like the war in Iran, is pushing all of Washington's former partners to seek alternative alliances.

Thus, Brussels is looking to make Canada the first country with the status of "associate member" of the EU, a relationship in which the North American country would put on the table the possibility of cooperating in areas as diverse as critical minerals, industrial defense capacity, artificial intelligence and computing capacity, energy security, and education (fully integrating into the Erasmus+ program). All this, in addition to the trade agreement between the two spaces that has been in force since 2017 and which reduced tariffs by 99%.

Carney has said that the goal is not so much "self-sufficiency," because that will hardly be complete in a context of globalization, as "collective resilience," that is, the ability of middle powers to face united the threat currently posed by superpowers like the United States or China. "Canada and Europe are strong on their own. Europe and Canada are stronger together," he declared.

The goal of all these movements must be to deter Washington from any expansionist whims and also to raise the price for the United States of the trade war they have decided to launch unilaterally against practically the entire planet. The objective of the European leaders and the Canadian leader is to prepare for the worst-case scenario, which would be a breakdown in trade relations with the US with consequences that are difficult to foresee, but which would certainly have a negative impact on American families.

Meanwhile, the EU must advance its strategic autonomy, starting with defense, AI, and energy, to stop depending in some areas on both the United States and China or oil-exporting countries. The fact that Canada wants to associate with the EU should also increase the Europeans' self-esteem, because despite all the deficiencies and dependencies, it is still one of the largest and most integrated markets in the world, with 450 million potential consumers and a GDP of 18 trillion euros, as well as a space with legal security, political stability, and a high degree of social cohesion. And this, in the new Darwinian world order that seems to be being imposed, makes it one of the best places in the world to live.