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Analysis
The world’s wake-up call came at 3 a.m.
In the early darkness on Saturday, Feb. 1, USAID was suddenly shut down. “This site can’t be reached,” read its homepage. The end of the great age of American soft power began.
It was shocking, but not surprising. When Elon Musk pulled the rip cord of his verbal chainsaw and declared that USAID was a $40 billion “criminal organization” that “must die,” the deep-cut result was inevitable. President Donald Trump agreed, saying the organization was run “by a bunch of lunatics.”
Today, the website message is more stark. “On Friday, February 7, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. (EST) all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs.”
The remnants of USAID will be rolled into the State Department.
Is this really the end of American soft power and, if so, how should allies respond?
Created by President John F. Kennedy back in 1961, USAID was meant to be the bicep in America’s muscular arm of diplomatic power. According to the Congressional Research Service, USAID “provides assistance to strategically important countries and countries in conflict; leads US efforts to alleviate poverty, disease, and humanitarian need; and assists US commercial interests by supporting developing countries’ economic growth and building countries’ capacity to participate in world trade.”
It was a broad mandate covering over 131 countries and hundreds of programs.
What did they do? At its best, USAID helped fight deadly diseases through programs such as the Malaria Council in Uganda, or the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. It supported NGOs working to stop the spread of Ebola and Marburg virus and to feed hungry people in Sudan.
The hyperpolarized culture wars rang the death knell of proportionality long ago, so when Musk dismissed the entire agency as “a radical left political psy ops” program, it fit the moment. Everything is now either the worst or the best. The middle ground is gone. But for all that, the facts remain and they are worth mentioning.
For example, the White House currently has a website up outlining its claims of waste and abuse at USAID, chronicling things like $70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland and $32,000 for a “transgender comic book in Peru.” Those are making headlines in the culture war media. There will be other examples of programs the current administration chooses not to fund or accuses of corruption, but how many?
Turns out, the website only gives concrete examples of about $12 million worth of programs they don’t like, along with allegations but no data on “hundreds of millions” of others. Of USAID’s annual budget of $40 billion, that adds up to less than 2%. Is the best answer to a broken toe the complete amputation of a leg? Apparently so.
USAID was an important instrument of what Joseph Nye called “soft power,” achieving national security and goals through attraction, not coercion. “When you can get others to admire your ideals and to want what you want, you do not have to spend as much on sticks and carrots to move them in your direction,” Nye wrote in “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics” back in 2004.
USAID was just that, projecting the ideals of the US in places where chaos, poverty, and insecurity are fertile grounds for malevolent forces that endanger the United States. It did this by supporting multilateral institutions, such as the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement. Soft power is a form of security and is supposed to work in conjunction with hard power. But if you think the cost of soft power is high, try the costs of hard power. Americans know that all too well from experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What is striking about all this is that the Trump administration is not just trying to recalibrate US soft power to promote its own agenda. If that were the case, they would simply reform USAID, not kill it. This is radically different. What is now clear is that the Trump administration doesn’t believe in the value of soft power at all. It simply has no use in their political playbook.
There are no countries happier with the retreat of US soft power than China and Russia. Their influence in developing countries will now grow dramatically. Democracies are in retreat all over the world, as the Freedom House map shows, and the sunset of US soft power will make it worse.
But this is not the only example of the twilight of US soft power. The threat of 25% percent tariffs on allies like Canada is another. There is no closer ally to the US than Canada, with a shared border, a free trade deal, and deeply connected cultures. The tariff threat suddenly upended that, leading to scenes I have never witnessed in my lifetime, such as Canadians booing the American national anthem at hockey games.
The northern sense of confusion and betrayal is being amplified by the election cycles in Canada, with politicians now stoking a patriotism that comes at the expense of affection for the US. It is not a good trend but in context, completely understandable.
At this moment, the ubiquitous soft power of American culture has gone from inspiring to infuriating, the American beacon of freedom is now fried up into Canadian bacon. It will take a long time to reestablish trust between the friendliest of all neighbo(u)rs.
Let’s not overstate things. US soft power is not gone; it’s just diminished. American culture, innovation, and institutions remain resilient to challenges and attractive to billions of people. And for all the talk of diversifying trade, Canada will be economically tied to the US forever. There is simply no escaping geography.
But the end of the golden age of American soft power means that hard power options — militarily and economically – are now the most prominent tools on the table. Trump’s repeated claim that Canada should become the 51st state while threatening to economically destroy the country has gone from a bad joke to an ominous warning. How to respond?
As the US abandons its soft power strategy, its allies are having to develop their own versions of it to avoid punishment. Taking on Trump in a hard power fight is, after all, a lose-lose. A trade war may hurt the US, but it would hurt Canada much more.
The strategy now is to use soft power levers to try to convince the US president that what Washington wants, Ottawa wants too, without giving up too much in the process. So spending $1.3 billion at the border to stop illegal immigration and fentanyl is money well spent if it can help stave off tariffs that would likely push Canada into a recession. Of course, the tariffs aren't solely in response to fentanyl and immigration, but those are low-hanging fruit and, so far, addressing those issues has worked.
Then what? What are the rules of soft power in dealing with President Trump? Don’t celebrate and gloat over a win. Stay cool when threats don’t materialize. Don’t make it personal because with the president the personal is political. This is not a strategy of appeasement but simply using carrots, not sticks. To twist an old David Frost saying, soft power is the art of letting someone else have your way.When Canadian defense expert Philippe Lagassé met with American counterparts in Washington this week, he quickly sensed they had not registered that the mood had shifted in Canada.
“There’s still a lot of emphasis on partnership,” he said. “We should be working together. We should be doing some things together.”
But Lagassé, an associate professor at Ottawa’s Carleton University, had to tell them that things had changed. “That’s hard right now because, politically, that’s just become a lot more difficult.”
Canadians were so angered by Donald Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats that they yanked American bourbon from liquor stores and turned up their noses at American produce. The typically staid hockey fans of Ottawa even booed the US national anthem.
Canadians, who are used to thinking of the Americans as friendly neighbors, are suddenly seeing them as a threat to their sovereignty. A poll this week shows 80% of Canadians support using oil as a weapon in the trade dispute, which would be a dramatic escalation. On Monday, Trump called off the planned 25% tariffs after Justin Trudeau agreed to take measures on the border, but the pause is for just 30 days.
Rattled Canadians are suddenly more committed to enhancing their sovereignty by reducing internal trade barriers, diversifying international trade so the country is less dependent on the United States, and beefing up the military.
Long a NATO laggard
It will need a lot of beef. For decades, Canada has sheltered under the coattails of Uncle Sam.
With oceans on both sides, an impassable ice cap to the north and friendly Americans to the south, there was little public support for military spending and lots of support for spending money on social programs. Even tough-talking Conservative Stephen Harper did little to boost defense spending. Canada is a NATO laggard, spending only 1.37% of GDP on defense — the average across NATO members is 2.71% of GDP — something Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Trump have all complained about. Last year, leaked documents showed that Trudeau told NATO that Canada had no plan to get to 2%, the level all NATO countries have agreed on.
When political circumstances changed, Trudeau laid out a plan to get to 2%, but years of neglect will take time to turn around. Due to recruiting problems, there are only 63,000 people in the Canadian Armed Forces — well below the 71,500 it is supposed to have. Even at full strength, it is tiny compared with the 2 million troops south of the border. To make matters worse, three-quarters of Canadian soldiers are either overweight or obese.
Canada has summoned the will, finally, to spend on defense. Trudeau has promised to reach 2% by 2032. His likely successor, Mark Carney, said Wednesday he would aim for 2030. The defense minister has said we could get there within two years, although quickly rearming would pose logistical challenges.
But it is not clear if Canada's big push will be in partnership with its newly hostile neighbors. After all, if the United States decides to put tariffs on all Canadian exports, driving the country into a deep recession, would Canada want to proceed with the CA$70-billion purchase of 88 F-35A US fighter jets? Or would Ottawa cancel the order and buy fighters from Sweden, which has never threatened annexation? And if Canada’s economy is in free fall, could it afford to buy either?
Pentagon control
And should Canada buy kit from a hostile power? Canada’s military technology is integrated with America’s, so any operations without US approval would be complicated. The F-35 can’t function without its autonomic logistics information system, which is controlled by the Pentagon, which could limit its effectiveness in a showdown with America.
There may be pressure, therefore, to work more closely with other countries — to buy equipment from the Europeans, for example — although the natural inclination of the defense community in Ottawa is to stick with the Americans, whom they see as their friendly big brothers.
“I think there’s going to be a pretty heavy emphasis on the fact that you take Trump at his word, so you buy more American equipment, and you invest more in the US,” says Lagassé. “You try to integrate yourself more deeply into those supply chains, and that’s how you protect yourself. The other side is going to argue, well, now this is too vulnerable. We should try to become less dependent, take a step back.”
Not a lot of choices
But Canadians are limited in their options, says Graeme Thompson, an analyst with Eurasia Group, because at the forefront of military innovation with AI and advanced computing, there are only two real options: China and the US.
“There’s the Chinese ecosystem and there’s the American ecosystem, and basically Canada doesn’t have a choice there. It’s not going to be able to develop its own autonomous tech ecosystem or supply chains. It has to be plugged into the US side of things. There’s a great line, I don’t know who said it, but ‘the US is our best friend, whether we like it or not.’”
Canadians may want their government to do more to assert national sovereignty, but Lagassé doubts that sentiment is strong enough to disrupt the close military cooperation between Canada and the United States.
“The public may want us to do something differently, but … is the public willing to sustain the cost? Is the public’s attention going to be sufficiently focused so that political leaders see gain in pursuing that? Or does it just kind of evaporate once the tariff threat is no longer present?”
Once tempers cool, Canadian politicians will continue to use procurement deals as a way of currying favor with the Americans rather than a way of asserting independence. After all, they are Canada’s best friends, whether they like it or not.
Viewpoint: With his reelection bid, Ecuador’s Noboa seeks more time to bring violence under control
Supporters hold cardboard cutouts of Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, days before the Ecuadorian presidential election, in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on Feb. 4, 2025.
Ecuadorians will head to the polls on Feb. 9 to choose their next president against a backdrop of spiraling violence similar to that of the last presidential election in 2023. That was an early vote called by then-President Guillermo Lasso in an attempt to avoid impeachment. Daniel Noboa, the fresh-faced son of a banana magnate, achieved an upset victory, assumed the presidency, and launched an aggressive crackdown against the drug trafficking gangs terrorizing the country.
Less than two years later, the 38-year-old president is asking for a full term in office (four years) in this weekend’s regularly scheduled election. Noboa says he wants to finish what he started, and his clear lead in the polls suggests that voters are inclined to give him the opportunity. We sat down with Eurasia Group expert Risa Grais-Targow to learn more about the upcoming election.
What are voters’ biggest concerns?
The main issue by far is security, followed by economic concerns. There was a crisis of electricity outages toward the end of last year, but that has been abated by recent rains (the country is heavily dependent on hydropower) and fallen lower on the list of voter concerns. However, there has been a renewed deterioration of the security situation, and the start of this year has been one of the most violent ever.
What is driving this violence? Are political candidates being targeted, as in 2023?
No high-profile candidates have been targeted this time (presidential hopeful Fernando Villavicencio was shot and killed in 2023), but some local officials have been killed and there may be a political motive behind the latest wave of violence. Noboa has really made the fight against organized crime a pillar of his presidency. When he took office in January 2024, he declared a state of emergency, brought the military out onto the streets, and took control of the country’s prisons, which had been a hotbed of criminal activity. So criminal groups may be intensifying their battles for control of drug-transit routes partly in the hope that the resulting uptick in violence will lead voters to conclude the president’s approach is not working.
Is it working? Given these still high levels of violence under Noboa, why is he leading in the polls?
Noboa’s policies initially brought a dramatic decline in homicide rates and other violence. Since then, it’s possible that criminal groups found ways to work around them. Still, levels of violence are lower than at their late 2023 peak. More broadly, voters support Noboa’s policies and believe that he is doing the right thing or trying to do the right thing. They think he needs more time. He's only been in office for just over a year, so I think voters are still, at this juncture, willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Are there other reasons for this high level of support for Noboa?
I think that he is still viewed by voters as a bit of an outsider, someone who is shaking up Ecuadorian politics. He came out of nowhere in 2023 to win the election. He's very young and still kind of feels like a fresh face. The other thing he has going for him is that his main opponent, Luisa Gonzalez, is not a strong candidate with a clear message on the issues voters care about. She represents the correismo movement launched by former president Rafael Correa, which has a very loyal base but also is strongly disliked by some parts of the electorate.
What has happened to correismo? It used to be a dominant force in Ecuadorian politics, but its fortunes seem to have declined in the last couple of elections.
The movement has struggled to come up with a compelling forward-looking campaign message, focusing more on attacking Noboa and peddling nostalgia about conditions during Correa’s time in office (2007-2017). Moreover, the country’s security crisis has focused attention on decisions Correa made such as expelling the US military from the base in Manta. Similarly, the country’s current reliance on hydropower and shaky electricity grid stems from decisions made under Correa, including his flagship Chinese-built Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric dam, which has major structural problems.
At the same time, Noboa’s young National Democratic Action party seems to be consolidating its position. What is the significance of this?
Ecuadorian politics seems to be consolidating around two main parties, National Democratic Action and Correismo, which marks a departure from its typical fragmentation. This can be a stabilizing force for a country with a long history of political instability and volatility.
What are some things Ecuador’s next president could do to address the country’s problems?
Noboa wants to amend the constitution to allow foreign military bases in Ecuador, reversing the policy instituted by Correa. The country is doing battle with multinational criminal organizations – the groups in Ecuador report, for example, to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel – so having foreign military and intelligence assistance is potentially a big deal. This is a popular idea locally but will need to be put to a public referendum. In terms of electricity supply, Noboa has been changing regulations to stimulate investment in new generation capacity, and I think if he is elected to a new four-year term, that could help get some of these projects moving. Finally, under the terms of the country’s financial support package from the IMF, the next president will have to raise tax revenue and cut back on fuel subsidies. The latter is a particularly challenging issue that has prompted mass public protests in the past.
Edited by Jonathan House, Senior Editor, Eurasia Group
Before DeepSeek released its R1 model last month, America’s long-term AI dominance felt like a sure thing.
DeepSeek is a Chinese startup, born from a hedge fund, that claims to have used a fraction of the computing power of US competitors while making an artificial intelligence model that rivals the best that Northern California’s labs have to offer. Critics have alleged that the company has been dishonest about claims it only spent $6 million training the model. But for anyone taking DeepSeek at face value, it has been a revelation that sent shockwaves not only through Silicon Valley but also through Wall Street and Washington.
The Biden administration spent the past few years clamping down on powerful US-made chips flowing into China, but evidently, DeepSeek figured out how to build a great model with a dearth of high-tech resources.
“It shines a spotlight on the limits of the US export control system,” said Xiaomeng Lu, geo-technology director of Eurasia Group. “Technology has evolved in a way that regulators failed to anticipate.”
“Necessity is the mother of invention” – that’s how Jack Corrigan of Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology put it. “US efforts to hobble China’s AI sector created a need for Chinese developers to innovate a more efficient approach to AI.”
But DeepSeek’s impact goes beyond its own efficiency. It’s an open-source model, meaning its code is available for anyone to use and modify. “Due to the open-source nature of their model, it will be much harder to restrict access to it entirely,” said Valerie Wirtschafter, a fellow at the Brookings Institution. “The other more pragmatic question is whether Congress has the appetite for more whack-a-mole-style tech regulations, given the chaos that has unfolded since the passage of the TikTok ban.”
US government agencies such as NASA and the Navy have banned DeepSeek models on their devices, as did Congress, but there’s been no US effort to try and ban it more widely among the public, as Italy did on Thursday, citing unresolved data privacy concerns. And America’s top cloud providers, including Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, have already added access to R1.
Justin Sherman, founder of Global Cyber Strategies, says that the Trump administration has a toolbox to “screen, restrict, and even expel non-US tech from the US tech supply chain on national security grounds,” particularly through the Commerce Department’s Information and Communications Technology and Services. Still, he cautions against letting “stock market temperaments, reductive China panic in Washington, and media overinflation of industry AI claims” steer nuanced policy decisions.
DeepSeek’s true threat is likely strategic rather than technical. “DeepSeek’s latest model raises the question of what happens if China becomes the leader in providing publicly available, freely downloadable AI models,” said Sam Winter-Levy, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “While the US is obsessed with the race to see who can build the single biggest and most powerful model, perhaps even artificial general intelligence, the Chinese might win the race to see who can build really useful and cost-effective models that will be used by people and companies around the world.” At a minimum, China’s overnight success has quickly leveled the playing field for US-China competition over technology.
Perhaps then the answer to DeepSeek requires a rethinking of what American dominance in AI really means. Banning any specific app or model would just be a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.
GZERO Explains: Why is Trump fighting South Africa over its land policy?
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa looks on during the 55th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2025.
President Donald Trump has said that he will cut all US funding to South Africa, accusing the government there of confiscating land and “treating certain classes of people very badly,” an allegation South African President Cyril Ramaphosa denies.
What is Trump talking about? Last month, South Africa passed the Expropriation Act, which aims to address severe racial imbalances in land ownership. Thirty years after the fall of Apartheid, three quarters of private farmland is held by whites, who comprise less than 10% of the population. The new act repeals an Apartheid era law that was used to expropriate Black farmers.
What does the bill say? It facilitates the government purchase of unused or abandoned land, provided that “just and equitable” compensation is given. But it also, in the “public interest”, allows land to be expropriated without compensation if the property is abandoned and the landowner can’t be reached, or if it is being used for criminal activity.
What’s the controversy? Critics say this latter provision violates the South African constitution’s protections for private property. AfriForum, a South African lobbying group that acts on behalf of white Afrikaans speakers, recently briefed Trump on the bill. Elon Musk, who hails from South Africa, has also said the bill threatens South Africa’s white minority.
What happens if Trump pulls funding from South Africa? From a geopolitical perspective, “not much,” says Eurasia Group Africa Practice Head Amaka Anku, “the funding in question is about $440 million to South Africa’s HIV program, which is not significant enough to make South Africa retaliate.”
Still, that funding accounts for nearly a fifth of South Africa’s total HIV program funding. In a country with the largest HIV-positive population in the world, the human consequences could be significant.
Belarus’s exiled opposition leader wants to “remind” Americans of something important
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a leader of the democratic opposition of Belarus, is seen here in Krakow, Poland, in 2022.
Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko has been in power for more than 30 years. A close ally of Vladimir Putin, he is often referred to as “Europe’s last dictator.”
Last weekend, he won yet another election that was widely regarded as rigged.
The last time he did that, in 2020, it provoked mass protests led by opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who took up the mantle after her husband Syarhei, a popular dissident, was jailed ahead of the vote. The regime brutally suppressed those protests, jailing hundreds. Tsikhanousakaya fled into exile in neighboring Lithuania.
She is still there, and her husband remains in a Belarusian prison. I spoke to her about why Lukashenko’s latest electoral fraud has failed to produce the same kind of uprising, and what she expects and hopes will happen next.
Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Alex Kliment: Sviatlana, the last time Lukashenko won an election that was widely regarded as a fraud, there were mass protests, the largest in Belarusian history. This time, so far, the streets of Minsk are silent. Why?
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya:In 2020, after fraudulent elections, people went to the streets. We wanted to protect our votes, our voice, and this regime, they suppressed it. They unleashed terror and for four years in a row, the regime has kept Belarusian people in total fear.
I think that people in democratic countries don’t even have an understanding of what it means to live in such a society, in such a tyranny. It’s like in Stalin’s time when at any moment the KGB just can break into your house and detain you in front of your children. There is no rule of law. You don’t know what colors you can wear. Is the combination of white and red safe? [The colors of the opposition flag]. Or if you donate 20 euros to the Ukrainian army, it costs you five years in prison. Or if you buy Christmas presents for children of political prisoners, and the regime says that you are supporting extremism, they put you in prison for 10, 15 years.
So while in 2020 we believed that millions of people in the streets will show this regime “we are against you, we want you to leave!” Now, when people are silenced, when people are underground, I don’t want people to be imprisoned in vain. We need people. We need people’s energy for a real moment of opportunity. And this circus and farce, it’s not the moment we are preparing for.
Kliment: What do you think will bring about that real moment of opportunity?
Tsikhanouskaya: It could be many scenarios. First, the fate of Belarus and Ukraine are intertwined because both our countries are fighting against the imperialistic ambitions of Russia. Lukashenko became a vassal to Putin, a puppet to Putin’s regime, providing all the necessary infrastructure, territory, and facilities for Russia[’s invasion of Ukraine]. The victory of Ukraine in this war will weaken Putin’s regime and hence weaken Lukashenko’s regime.
It could also be an internal coup d’etat in the regime. For years, the Belarusian people and Belarusian nomenklatura have seen that Lukashenko is a dead end for our country, for our independence, and for our sovereignty. Lukashenko is selling our country, piece by piece, to Russia. He doesn’t care about Belarusian national identity. He doesn’t care about the Belarusian nation. He cares only about his power. And Putin is the person who provides this power to Lukashenko. So elites understand that we can lose our country, that Lukashenko can make Belarus an appendix of Russia, and they don’t want that.
It could be economic issues. It can be a “hunger uprising.” Why not? Lukashenko is doing everything possible to isolate our country, committing crime after crime, making the democratic world impose sanctions.
It could be any black swan, like the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria was. And our task is to be prepared for this moment. We have to be strong enough. We have to be united. We have to keep our democratic partners in alliance with us and use this moment of opportunity for Belarus and bring changes.
Kliment: Right now, leaders and societies around the world are bracing for the impact of Donald Trump’s foreign policy. How might that affect Belarus generally, and affect your movement in particular?
Tsikhanouskaya: I want to remind free Americans that the United States of America was always a beacon of freedom and hope for countries who are fighting for democracy. We need examples. We need to see how a strong democracy is helping those who are sacrificing their freedom, sacrificing their lives for the values that your countries are based on.
We always saw the USA as our ally against dictatorship, against tyranny, against brutality and I want to believe that the USA will continue to help and assist those nations who are on the front line of this fight.
So for us, it’s important to show the new US government the strategic importance of Belarus in our region. How without free and democratic and independent Belarus, there will be no peace and security in the whole region.
Lukashenko is now a key player in the global network of autocrats helping each other circumvent sanctions and sustain dictatorships. Belarus has become a hub for smuggling sanctioned goods, laundering money, and facilitating weapons production.
So stand with us, help us to return our country to its people and to the European family of nations. It’s in the interest of global peace and security, and this is what the USA always was standing for.
Kliment: And under what circumstances do you hope to return to Belarus? What is the Belarus that you dream of going back to?
Tsikhanouskaya: My dream of Belarus is that my country is, first of all, a free country where people don’t live in constant fear. I want a Belarus that is not dependent on Russia. I want a Belarus that is a reliable neighbor for Western countries and not the source of constant threats and provocation as we are now. And I truly believe that with good governance, with good management, our country really can be among the most advanced countries in Europe. We have wonderful, hard-working, very disciplined, very patient, and peaceful people.
And this isn’t about hope, it’s about hard work, it’s about constant challenges, but it’s also about confidence. Because I see how, despite all the brutality of the regime, despite all the difficulties, the Belarusian people have not given up. We are an inspiration of how to be strong, how to be brave, and how to fight against dictators.
Kliment: Well, I will look forward to speaking with you on that day. Vyaliki dziakui [thank you very much] Sviatlana.
Tsikhanouskaya: Fantastic, thank you.
Exclusive Echelon/GZERO poll: What would Americans annex?
GZERO partnered with Echelon Polling to uncover how Americans feel about Trump’s expansionary ideas. When asked about acquiring Greenland, the Panama Canal, or Canada, the majority of Americans said they would not support such moves. In the case of Canada, only 16% of respondents supported acquiring the US’ northern neighbor. At the high end, 34% of people supported acquiring the Panama Canal.