How the U.S. planned to annex Canada if victorious in a larger war with Britain

In the years after World War I, the United States made several plans for war with other countries, even allies like Britain. A war against the Brits, they envisioned, would begin by attacking Canada.The planning began in 1925 and extended to the mid 1930s as War Plan Red.

Click link for article

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/war-plan-red-us-canada-britain

Excerpts from National Post article of February 10/25 outlining the United States of America’s 1930s war strategy War Plan Red to attack Canada.

American plan of attack started in Halifax, moved to Montreal and went west from there

Halifax and its strategic ice-free port were seen as of critical importance in at the outset of the conflict and the Americans were prepared to send 25,000 army troops by sea to keep it out of British hands.

Contrary to international conventions, the U.S. authorized “the use of chemical warfare, including the use of toxic agents, from the inception of hostilities.”

In a 1935 update, planners identified Moncton and the port city of Saint John, New Brunswick, as secondary targets.

But if they succeeded in taking Halifax, the U.S. would move on to capture Montreal, seize control of the Great Lakes waterways and take the nickel mine in Sudbury “in order to provide a sufficient supply of this most important alloy metal as well as to deny this supply to RED.”

Provided things went to plan, the rest of the strategy involved eliminating the rail network in Winnipeg and eventually going after naval interests in the Vancouver area.

It was later discovered that in 1935, the U.S. constructed three military airfields adjacent to the Canadian border and labelled them as civilian airports.

When the ruse was revealed and Canada officials were understandably miffed, President Franklin Roosevelt needed to state unequivocally that the U.S. had no intentions of going to war with Canada.

Zoom ahead to 2025.

President Donald Trump said he is serious about wanting Canada to become the 51st state .He reportedly rolled out a

WAR PLAN RED Update /2025

and signed a proclamation to get the show on the road.

“I think Canada would be much better off being the 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let that happen,” he said. “Why are we paying $200 billion a year, essentially a subsidy to Canada?”

The U.S. is not subsidizing Canada. The U.S. buys products from the natural resource-rich nation, including commodities like oil. While the trade gap in goods has ballooned in recent years to $72 billion in 2023, the deficit largely reflects America’s imports of Canadian energy.

Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada would be better off if it agreed to become the 51st U.S. state—a prospect that is deeply unpopular among Canadians.