{"id":131595,"date":"2025-03-28T13:50:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T13:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/fewer-americans-now-see-canada-as-a-close-us-ally-as-trump-strains-a-longtime-partnership-the-associated-press\/"},"modified":"2025-03-28T13:50:32","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T13:50:32","slug":"fewer-americans-now-see-canada-as-a-close-us-ally-as-trump-strains-a-longtime-partnership-the-associated-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/fewer-americans-now-see-canada-as-a-close-us-ally-as-trump-strains-a-longtime-partnership-the-associated-press\/","title":{"rendered":"Fewer Americans now see Canada as a close US ally as Trump strains a longtime partnership – The Associated Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Toronto residents Douglas Bloomfield, from right, his son Phoenix and wife Ame, who are on vacation in Washington, hold a Canadian flag and an ice hockey stick to show their support for Canada regarding trade tariffs in front of the White House in Washington, March 13, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ben Curtis, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Americans are less likely to see Canada<\/a><\/span> and the U.S. as close allies than they were two years ago, the latest indication that President Donald Trump\u2019s tariff threats<\/a><\/span> and talk of taking over a neighboring ally<\/a><\/span> are souring a critical economic and military relationship. <\/p>\n

The U.S. shift in viewpoint comes primarily from Democrats, though Republicans are less likely to see Canada as America\u2019s ally now too, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research<\/a><\/span>. While about 7 in 10 Democrats saw Canada and the U.S. as close allies before Trump returned to office, now that number is down to about half. For Republicans, the number dropped from 55% to 44%.
Although most still see the countries\u2019 relationship as at least \u201cfriendly,\u201d just under half of U.S. adults now consider the U.S. to be \u201cclose allies\u201d with its neighbor to the north. That\u2019s down from about 6 in 10 in a Pearson Institute\/AP-NORC poll<\/a><\/span> conducted in September 2023.
\u201cHe\u2019s turning everybody against us,\u201d bemoaned Lynn Huster, 73, a lifelong Democrat who lives in York, Pennsylvania. Huster says she has been dismayed by Trump\u2019s actions and how they have affected relationships with other allies, including the United Kingdom.
\u201cCanada,\u201d she said, had been \u201cour friends, you know, they backed us. And some of the other countries, the U.K., they don\u2019t want any part of us anymore. And it\u2019s sad that our country\u2019s going to stand alone if anything happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The poll comes as Trump has dramatically realigned U.S. foreign policy and America\u2019s relations since his return to office.
He has slapped sweeping tariffs on goods<\/a><\/span> made in Canada, Mexico and China, and this week added a 25% tax on imported autos<\/a><\/span>. Next week, he says he will put in place \u201creciprocal\u201d taxes<\/a><\/span> mirroring the tariffs charged by other nations \u2014 a move he is calling \u201cLiberation Day.\u201d
Beyond the economic threats, Trump has repeatedly antagonized and belittled historic partners, notably the one with which the U.S. shares a 5,500-mile (8,900-kilometer) border. He has threatened Canada\u2019s sovereignty, saying it should become the country\u2019s 51st state<\/a><\/span>, and repeatedly labeled its prime minister \u201cgovernor.\u201d
His moves have sparked deep feelings of betrayal<\/a><\/span> across Canada, where the U.S.-Canada relationship had long been seen akin to family. The U.S. national anthem has been booed at Canadian arenas and American liquor has been stripped from Canadian shelves.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose party\u2019s fortunes have been revived<\/a><\/span> by taking a hard line against Trump, said Thursday that the U.S. is \u201cno longer a reliable partner\u201d and that Canadians must now \u201clook out for ourselves.\u201d
Shaya Scher, 35, a Republican who lives in New Jersey, argues that Trump\u2019s rhetoric toward Canada is largely bluster.
\u201cI think he\u2019s just doing it to make them freak out so they can get a deal,\u201d Scher said.
He believes a deal will eventually happen and tensions will ease.
\u201cI think at the end of the day, they\u2019re still allies,\u201d he said. \u201cUnder the hood we\u2019re still allies, and if anything comes up, we\u2019ll still be allies.\u201d
Others, however, were more despondent.
\u201cHe\u2019s sabotaging decades of goodwill by having tariffs on foreign steel and foreign cars and foreign flowers,\u201d said Scott Cunningham, 69, a Democrat who lives in South Bend, Indiana. \u201cTariffs are really going to hurt relationships \u2014 trading relationships, personal relationships \u2014 after being allies for decades. You do something like that, I\u2019m going to remember that.\u201d
About 3 in 10 Americans see Canada as \u201cfriendly but not a close ally,\u201d while about 2 in 10 say the two countries are \u201cnot friendly but not enemies.\u201d Very few see them as outright \u201cenemies.\u201d
Cunningham characterized the current U.S. relationship with Canada as \u201cnot friendly but not enemies.\u201d
\u201cWe\u2019re not friends because of tariffs and him wanting to take over the country. That\u2019s not going well,\u201d he said. \u201dIt\u2019s very strained right now.\u201d
When it comes to the rest of the world, the AP-NORC poll found about half of U.S. adults see the United Kingdom as a close U.S. ally, but only about 3 in 10 say the same about France and Germany. About 4 in 10 say the European Union is a close ally.
Almost no Americans see either Russia or China as a close ally. About one-third say China is an enemy of the United States, and a similar share think this about Russia. Republicans are less likely to see Russia as a threat. Only about one-third of Republicans see Russia as an enemy of the U.S., compared to about 4 in 10 Democrats.
Trent Ramsaran, 37, a freelancer who lives in Brooklyn, New York, said many European leaders of traditional U.S. allies clearly have conflicting views with Trump, particularly on immigration.
\u201cI\u2019m starting to see the pattern there where it seems like all these quote-unquote allies are in favor of having immigrants take over the country,\u201d he said. \u201cHis vision is really not the same as these allies. So he\u2019s saying these allies are not on the same page.\u201d
But Ramsaran said he\u2019s not at all worried about the U.S. someday needing allies it has alienated, given how much the country spends on defense and high-tech weapons.
\u201cIf America ended up being attacked, I\u2019m totally confident that we do not need the help of our allies to defend this country,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got Tom Cruise. He can teach people how to dogfight in \u2018Top Gun.\u2019\u201d
Colvin reported from New York.
The AP-NORC poll of 1,229 adults was conducted Mar. 20-24, using a sample drawn from NORC\u2019s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.Toronto residents Douglas Bloomfield, from right, his son Phoenix and wife Ame, who are on vacation in Washington, hold a Canadian flag and an ice hockey stick to show their support for Canada regarding trade tariffs in front of the White House in Washington, March 13, 2025. (AP […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":131596,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}