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Canadians are always ready to criticize our neighbours, but we have not found a vocation for ourselves

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Last week I carefully read the statement of strategic purpose of the Trump administration, a document published by every recent incoming administration within a year of its inauguration. The strategic statement has been received with misgivings by members of the Fortress America school that holds that the United States should be ready at all times to repulse any initiative from any potential rival country or group of countries, and by Western Europeans always on the lookout for any softening commitment of the United States to the defence of Western Europe.

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I will explain why I don’t share those concerns, but my principal reservation about the strategic statement is that the country, and indeed the word, Canada, is mentioned only once in this document. A number of other countries are also overlooked but none of them has as intimate a geographic, commercial, and cultural association with the United States as Canada does.

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