Windsor, Ontario — February 1 was the first day of the great Canadian trade war. President Trump imposed 25% tariffs on imports from Canada, and the Canadian government promised swift retaliation. Trump said he’ll simply double the tariff if they impose their own. Neither side has blinked yet.

I have some excellent news—Canada’s strippers want to be American, and I did the research to prove it.

I went to Windsor to monitor the situation and speak to some locals. We’re calling it South Detroit now—finally that famed ballad by Journey, “born and raised in South Detroit,” makes sense!

I took the tunnel under the river. Paid the $8 toll. Did the usual song and dance with the Canadian border jockey. A farcical ritual everyone in cross-border towns knows well. Yes sir, just staying in Windsor for the night, no tobacco or firearms on me.

He asked if I had more than $10k in cash on me. Well, let me check my pockets actually. What’s the exchange rate again? I was carrying $100. That might be over $10k Canadian?

Might as well have been, with the Canadian dollar trading under 70¢ to the U.S. Dollar. Canadian money is wampum, those little bits of beads and shells used by the natives for trade between themselves, but useless for anyone else. The bills are even made of plastic.

“Ontario, Open for Business.” That’s the provincial slogan. They even put it on a sign outside the visitor’s center. Had to laugh. Open for business—-you bet it is. Ripe for the taking, more like it. The perfect slogan for a province that’s been made into nothing more than a meaningless economic zone. 

Checked into my hotel. Showed the front desk clerk my ID, and she realized I’m American. We got to talking—her daughter just married an American and moved to a town not far from my own hometown. Small world. She told me it’s incredibly frustrating sending her daughter money. “I send her 100 dollars, and she gets 50 bucks.”

Lugged my bag up to my room. Time to hit the sauna before my night out. Two Canadian guys were in there talking business. I heard the phrase “Microsoft Teams” and my eyes glazed over. Typical friendly Anglo-Canadians, we started talking. I told them I’m an American writer here to write a piece about the tariffs. 

Surprisingly, not only did they support the tariffs, but with great enthusiasm. Not just the tariffs, but the full fledged annexation of Canada by the U.S., aka Cannexation. “Let’s do it, 51st state” one of them said immediately. 

Of course they want to be American. These guys actually work for a living. They loathe their high taxes, loathe the weak Canadian dollar, loathe the constant flood of immigration and rapidly disintegrating Canadian economy. They love Canada, they told me, but they see this as the best possible solution to their problems. For Canadian malaise, annexation feels like salvation from a government they despise. 

They hate Trudeau, of course, and even clued me in to his plans. Americans don’t really follow Canadian politics, so when we heard Trudeau resigned, we figured that was the end of it. Not so, my new Canadian friends told me! He didn’t resign immediately. He scheduled elections for the end of March, promising to resign at the end of them, and in the meantime, suspended the Parliament through some quirk of Canadian procedure. Trudeau and his cabinet of ministers now have sole authority to respond to the tariff crisis over the next two months.

They told me Trudeau plans to simply print more money and send it off as stimulus payments to Canadians, just like during the pandemic. Even more, he plans to retaliate. As of Sunday he personally announced retaliatory tariffs, with headlines now rumoring that he plans to somehow target GOP-led states specifically. Personally, I don’t think he has the strategic acumen for such a precision counterattack, but the liberal media can dream. 

He’ll just turn on the money printer again like any good neoliberal. Problem is, the Canadian dollar is already in a precipitous state. Canada can’t money-print its way out of this one. Not in a trade war with its biggest trading partner, whom a full quarter of its GDP depends on. 

Thanked the fellas for their insight (and some nice bar recommendations in Windsor). Time for a shower and off to dinner. I like to do my best Anthony Bourdain bit and sample the local cuisine. “Singapore Laksa” from this southeast asian restaurant caught my eye on Google Maps. A classic Canadian dish, no doubt. Very good, very spicy, shrimp and rice cakes in a rich broth with noodles and chili peppers. 

The irony of course is that when you turn your country into a nation-less economic zone, there is no localism anymore. Exoticism, Singaporean fish soup, becomes the new localism. Even the remnants of previous immigration waves decay one by one. Windsor has a lot of Italian place names, random buildings named after places in Italy and such. A few old Italian restaurants remain, but I didn’t see many Italians. 

I walked to the restaurant, a good mile and a half in the freezing cold away from the casino hotel complex downtown. This is the real Windsor—definitely more of a South Detroit vibe than they’d care to admit. Small houses, many boarded up, graffiti, shuttered businesses. Dingy apartment complexes, barbed wire fences. Decay, stagnation. 

The restaurant had more doordashers picking up a constant stream of orders than it did customers. All of them Indian, I might add, apart from one possible Eritrean. Chatting away in Whatsapp calls with headphones in, holding their insulated bags to carry the food, waiting in line in the middle of the restaurant. They even had a few arguments in mutually garbled, heavily accented English with the Vietnamese staff, orders missing or delayed or something.

The food was amazing though. Say what you will about unlimited immigration, they make a mean soup. My bill came—$30! Oh wait, 30 Canadian dollars—-$20 in real currency. God, this is great, I thought. Is this what being a passport bro is like? I wonder when Americans will figure out that they can skip the trip to Thailand and simply jaunt across the northern border instead.

I refused to walk back to the hotel in the cold again. My Uber driver, a nice gentleman named Mohammed, hadn’t heard of the tariffs, but assured me that he would love to be American if he could only get a passport.

Back to the hotel. The casino hotel. There’s really only one in Windsor, the big one, Caesar’s. A massive complex, it does its best to fill out a second-tier Canadian Vegas vibe. A destination for alcohol soaked 19- and 20-year-olds from southeast Michigan who can drink there but not at home. The line at the casino nightclub was already jam packed with a very young looking crowd. A colony for Michigan youth, already.

Time to do a little gambling. The casino floor was packed on a Saturday night. Zoomer boys with broccoli perm haircuts crowded the roulette tables. One table dealer admonished a young man for licking his fingers before placing his bets, saying his spit was all over the chips. Younger girls and old ladies alike played the slot machines, buzzing and whirring with LEDs across the floor.

Whatever god still exists in Canada cursed me on the blackjack tables. $25 minimum bets pried a crisp Canadian hundred from my hands in about 5 seconds. Despair! Oh wait, that’s only like $70 in real money. Acceptable losses.

Gambling failed me so it was time to do some real work. Headed to the strip club. I chose the highest reviewed one in walking distance. I wanted to see what real Canadians thought about the tariffs, not just pompous politicians on TV. What do working Canadian girls think about annexation?

Chatted up the bouncer, asked him what he thought of the tariffs. He said man, they’re not fair, we’re supposed to be friends. But, he understood why Trump was doing it. He doesn’t like Trudeau either. In fact, every Canadian I spoke to loathes the prime minister. When I asked him if he’d rather just be American, he said yeah actually, that would be really cool.

Took the stairs down into the club. Speakers playing Lana del Rey. Total American cultural victory. A cute young bartender approached. Did I want a shot? No thanks, but listen, let me ask you a question: What do you think about Trump’s tariffs?

She’d never heard of them. She said she doesn’t care about politics. I explained the situation. She was against them at first, and didn’t like the sound of America and Canada fighting. But when I asked her, would she rather just be American? She said yes. Offered her $20 for her time, U.S. or Canadian, her choice. She took the U.S.

A stripper approached. A “dancer,” rather, as they apparently prefer to be called (strippers have gone woke, an essay for another time). Did I want a dance? No thanks, but listen, let me ask you a question: What do you think about Trump’s tariffs?

She was from Toronto and had family in the U.S. She laughed and said she was totally down to become American overnight, full blown annexation. She travels around a lot, works at different locales, and thought it’d be great for business. One thing’s certain—she chose U.S. dollars without a second thought.

They all did. And when I asked them if they would want to magically become Americans overnight, they all said yes. 

It was a thought that’d never really crossed their minds before, but sounded nice when they stopped to consider it. Cannexation, it has a nice ring to it. We really can just do things, and we should—why not? A generational opportunity to unify North America and liberate the Canadians from oppression. 

The strippers assessed the situation better than any think-tank guru. Barometers for political reality on the ground. They know the score better than anyone, working in a border town like this. One dollar is simply worth more than the other. If Cannexation is going to happen, that will be the key. Money talks. Offer Canadians parity with the U.S. dollar, and you’ll be shocked by the support. 

And besides, you can’t properly make it rain with those effete plastic Canadian bills anyways. Shower those girls with real greenbacks. They deserve it.

Bobby Mars is an artist, alter ego, and former art professor. Follow him on X @bobby_on_mars.