In a moment when the familiar architecture of North American trade is showing cracks, Canada under Prime Minister Mark Carney has turned its gaze eastward across the Atlantic, formally seeking associate membership within the European Union. The move is less a rejection of the continent it shares with the United States than a quiet acknowledgment that dependence on a single partner carries its own kind of vulnerability. History has often shown that nations recalibrate their alliances not in triumph but in response to pressure — and Canada, facing mounting trade uncertainty from Washington, is d