Conflict / Americas
Cuba Repression and Sanctions Standoff
Washington's indictment of Raúl Castro, oil blockade, and carrier deployment form the sharpest coercive architecture against Cuba since the Cold.
The closest alliance in the democratic world cracked open in 2025.
Returning to the White House, Donald Trump slapped 25% tariffs on most Canadian goods, revived a decades-old US claim that the Northwest Passage is international water, and began publicly suggesting Canada should become the 51st state. Ottawa retaliated with its own tariff package, and anti-American sentiment reshaped a federal election. The two economies move over $2 trillion in goods and services across the border each year and have been treaty allies since 1940.
The dispute is testing whether that architecture survives a US president who no longer treats it as settled.
Trajectory
The U.S.-Mexico Critical Minerals Action Plan, signed February 2026, is the sharpest recent phase change for Canada: Washington is constituting continental minerals governance bilaterally before the trilateral USMCA review is even convened, covering AI chips, EV batteries, semiconductors, and advanced defense systems under a national security framing that bypasses Ottawa entirely.
Weekly net escalation pressure, last 90 days
Analysis
The U.S.-Mexico Critical Minerals Action Plan is structurally more consequential than the USMCA review itself: it sets continental minerals governance architecture bilaterally before Canada can participate.
Alberta's secession dynamic has crossed a threshold: Smith's citizen vote converts a diffuse activist campaign into a state-sanctioned mandate process.
Historical Context
The US-Canada Free Trade Agreement entered into force, establishing the foundation for what became the world's largest bilateral trading relationship and deeply integrating the two economies.
NAFTA replaced the bilateral deal with a trilateral North American framework, further binding Canadian and US trade; Canada's exports to the US grew to represent roughly 75% of its total exports.
The US declared the Northwest Passage international waters after the voyage of the SS Manhattan without Canadian permission, establishing a sovereignty dispute over Arctic navigation that Canada has never accepted.
USMCA replaced NAFTA, modernizing trade rules for autos, dairy, and digital goods while preserving integrated supply chains that moved over $2 trillion in goods and services annually across the border.
Returning to office, President Trump imposed 25% tariffs on most Canadian goods, citing border and fentanyl concerns, directly threatening Canadian industries including steel, aluminum, and automotive manufacturing.
Trump made repeated public statements suggesting Canada should become the 51st US state, prompting a surge in Canadian nationalism, retaliatory tariff packages from Ottawa, and a sharp decline in cross-border goodwill.
Canadian federal politics realigned around anti-US sentiment, with the Liberal Party reversing a steep polling deficit and the annexation rhetoric becoming a dominant issue in a federal election campaign.
Continue With
All conflictsConflict / Americas
Washington's indictment of Raúl Castro, oil blockade, and carrier deployment form the sharpest coercive architecture against Cuba since the Cold.
Simmering / Americas
Venezuela's managed energy opening is now the template for U.S. coercive sequencing across the Western Hemisphere.