Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and Editor-In-Chief of The Tennessee Star, said he believes President Donald Trump’s calls for Canada to become the 51st U.S. state is a negotiating tactic in disguise that will set up the U.S. in a position to take control over Canadian territories north of the 60th parallel to fortify the area with defenses in the event of Arctic incursions by Russia or China.
Reacting to Trump’s renewed calls for Canada to become the 51st U.S. state Tuesday during an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Leahy said he believes the president’s “endgame strategy” with Canada is to seize the nation’s northern territories – Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut – stretching from Alaska to Greenland.
Leahy is calling the gambit Trump’s “Northern Flank Strategy.”
“If Canada were a 51st state and if they had voted in 2024, who would they have voted for? Probably 75, 80 percent of them would have voted for Kamala Harris. That doesn’t work politically in America. Not at all. It would have a huge electoral college impact, and I don’t think that’s what Donald Trump is really after here. I think this is a negotiating tactic. What does he really want? He wants what I call the ‘Northern Flank Strategy,’” Leahy explained.
“What Trump really wants is those territories north of the 60th parallel…so we’ve got this continuous line from Alaska to the Canadian territories to Greenland, where we can put military bases, naval bases, and we can defend ourselves from a possible and increasingly likely Arctic incursion from Russian and Chinese forces,” Leahy added.
Leahy pointed out North America’s current “weakness” in the Arctic due to adversaries’ abilities to send naval vessels through the area, which he believes is prompting Trump’s strategy for the U.S. to have control over the northern flank stretching from Alaska to Greenland.
“[The area] is vast empty spaces and right now, it’s not not sufficiently protected. How many icebreakers do we have out there? I think we have two? How many of these does Canada have? Maybe one? Russia has icebreakers, they’ve got like 20, and China’s coming in there. We are facing the possibility of an Arctic incursion into the Northern Hemisphere, into North America, into the United States of America, from Russia and from China,” Leahy explained.
“Trump wants to have American ownership and control of all that area that faces the Arctic, fortified with military and naval bases to protect the United States from any Arctic incursions by Russia and China. That is what Donald Trump’s endgame is in my view,” Leahy added.
Tune in now to the The Michael Patrick Leahy Show – your AMERICA FIRST news talk
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
