Amidst Donald Trump’s belligerence Canada continues to assist the US military and arms industry. In response to the president’s hostility, writes Canadian Dimension columnist Yves Engler, Canada should cancel the Lockheed Martin F-35 contract, end officer exchanges, and cease our participation in NORAD’s missile defence program.

The Wall Street Journal warns that Trump’s “dumbest trade war in history” could lead to recession. But, as McGill University professor Daniel Cere explains, his policies might not be born out of ignorance, but cold-blooded tactics designed to advance the interests of those best positioned to take advantage of economic chaos.

Totalitarian regimes seek absolute control over the institutions that reproduce ideas, especially the media and education. Narratives that challenge the myths used to legitimize absolute power—in our case historical facts that blemish the sanctity of white male supremacy, capitalism and Christian fundamentalism—are erased. There is to be no shared reality.

As the US redefines its global role and its approach to international relations with Trump at the helm, the world is going to become a far more unstable and threatening place than it already is. In this enormously challenging context, the pivotal but still uncertain question will be the scale and strength of working class resistance and the popular struggles that are taken up.

As anybody not living on a desert island without internet access cannot fail to have noticed, Trump has begun his second term in the White House with a flourish. But the speed and comprehensiveness of the rest of his MAGA revolution has left many reeling, not just in the US (or Canada) but across the globe. It is astonishing just how much has been done—and undone—in just six weeks.

Whether Donald Trump’s tariffs remain for long, we must decouple our economy from the United States as much and as quickly as possible, writes political economist and University of Alberta professor emeritus Gordon Laxer. It will not be easy, but if we summon the resolve we showed in the Second World War, when we built whole industries from scratch, it can be done.

Engaging the United States did not work for Iran: Trump unilaterally and illegally withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear agreement. Engaging the US did not work for Canada: it did everything the Trump administration asked for, virtually eliminating the fentanyl crossing the border; yet it will now feel the harsh pain of 25 percent tariffs. Iran learned its lesson. Will Canada do the same?

As the Cuban Revolution enters its 66th year, the country is still in a difficult position, perhaps its most difficult since the overthrow of the Batista government in 1959. Many of the struggles of the Special Period remain, not to mention a migration crisis, hundreds of thousands of Cubans having left recently and more attempting to leave through various channels, some dangerous.

Donald Trump’s failed 2020 Abraham Accords led directly to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. This agreement, initially signed by Israel, the US, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, was ostensibly designed to “recognize the importance of maintaining and strengthening peace in the Middle East and around the world based on mutual understanding and coexistence.”

The human rights situation in Cuba is bad, and about to get worse. Prisoners will be denied basic constitutional rights and reports of abuse and torture will surface. No, we are not talking about treatment of dissidents opposed to the revolutionary government—but rather to the victims of US foreign policy in the tropical gulag of Guantánamo.