Of course, this is all talk. Canada isn't going to join the United States, and we can hardly just go up there and take it; for one thing, Canada is still part of the British Commonwealth, and the King may have something to say about it.

Which brings us back to the "Art of the Deal" idea. Donald Trump is mercurial; he likes throwing out proposals like confetti to see if any of them land anywhere interesting. By summer, he may well be talking up some other Canadian policy completely, especially if he's dealing with Pierre Poilievre, who will be a great improvement over the unlamented Justin Trudeau. And, no matter what happens, Canada and the United States will remain joined at the hip. We are each other's primary trade partners, we share a lot culturally, and nowhere else in the history of mankind have two nations shared a 5,525-mile land border, the longest international border in the world today, for over 200 years without so much as a squabble along that line.