Canada embraces EU associate membership despite Trump's tariff threats

At a moment when the architecture of global trade is being tested by political will and economic threat, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney stood before the European Parliament and chose a different direction — not away from something, but toward it. Canada's pursuit of EU associate membership, the first ever offered to a non-European nation, signals a quiet but profound reorientation of how a middle power understands its place in a fracturing world order. Trump's warnings of 'very serious tariffs' frame the stakes clearly: this is not merely a trade negotiation, but a question of whether nat