How likely is it that the US will annex Canada ?
Executive summary
The short answer: extremely unlikely. Contemporary talk of the United States “annexing” Canada has been driven by political rhetoric and fringe movements, not by viable legal, military, or popular routes to statehood, and analysts warn that any attempted annexation would be catastrophic and politically impractical for both countries [1] [2] [3].
1. Why the question is alive right now: political rhetoric and pockets of support
The topic resurfaced because high-profile U.S. political figures have publicly floated the idea and threatened “economic force,” and small Canadian movements and polls show pockets of interest—most notably Alberta’s Alberta 51 Project and a January 2025 Angus Reid poll that found roughly 18% support for Trump’s annexation proposal in Alberta, the highest provincial figure though still a clear minority [4] [1].
2. Legal and constitutional impossibilities on both sides
Annexation in the modern era would require complex and unprecedented legal processes in two sovereign democracies; there is no routine constitutional pathway for one democratic state to absorb another peaceful country’s populace and territory, and leading reporting notes that neither Canadian leaders nor mainstream political institutions support surrendering sovereignty—Mark Carney and former PMs have publicly rejected becoming a U.S. state [5] [6].
3. Military invasion is “folly in the extreme” and strategically self-defeating
Analysts and academic pieces argue that a military annexation would be both impractical and ruinous: scholars warn that absorbing more than 40 million people and securing vast territory would invite insurgency, sabotage, potential military defections, and enormous economic costs, and conclude an invasion would likely produce protracted guerrilla resistance rather than a quick conquest [2] [7] [3].
4. Economic coercion and “economic force” are unlikely to work and would boomerang
Proposals to use tariffs or other economic pressure to force political union have been floated publicly, but commentators and risk assessments caution such tactics would severely damage integrated North American trade, hurt both economies, and likely strengthen Canadian resistance and international isolation of the U.S., making coercion a self-defeating strategy [1] [8] [5].
5. Domestic politics, public opinion and the improbability of consensus
Even within the U.S., public support for annexation by force is vanishingly small and American political polarization would make the domestic governance costs enormous; Canada’s population and political class overwhelmingly oppose dissolution of sovereignty, and commentators note that annexation talk has produced a Canadian political rallying effect rather than acquiescence [3] [5] [6].
6. Who benefits from the rhetoric, and where real risk lies
Rhetoric about annexation serves political signaling—domestic audiences and partisan bases—more than credible policy-making, and it has catalyzed Canadian concern about resource security and Arctic sovereignty, where shows of force or legal disputes (e.g., over the Northwest Passage) are the more realistic flashpoints to watch than statehood proposals [9] [10] [1].
Conclusion: a probabilistic judgment
Given the legal impossibility, military impracticality, economic self-harm, lack of majority support in Canada, and scant appetite in the U.S. for the enormous costs, the probability of the United States annexing Canada in any foreseeable scenario is vanishingly low; the credible near-term risks are economic coercion, diplomatic crises, and regional insecurity rather than formal annexation [2] [3] [1].