Around 3,700 miles separate the Gothic towers of Canada’s Parliament in Ottawa from the glass-fronted modern European Parliament building in eastern France.
But judging by the thunderous applause shaking the E.U. chamber Thursday, President Donald Trump’s threats are helping to close that distance.
Canada and Europe have long been close U.S. allies, benefiting from American military power and trading heft. But Trump has upended those relationships, waging trade wars against Canada and the E.U., while threatening to absorb Canada as America’s 51st state and take control of Greenland, Denmark’s autonomous Arctic territory.
Without a reliable partner in the White House, the spurned allies are now forging their own path.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney urged the world’s “middle powers” to join forces in a speech before the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Thursday to create “an alliance strong enough so that no one can dictate our choices.”
The strategy in short: strength in numbers.
“I’m not proposing a third bloc in order to become a great power rival, only with better manners,” he stressed.
“We do not seek power to dominate others,” Carney continued. “On the contrary, we are pursuing resilience. So no one — no one — can control our open markets, impair our sovereignty, threaten our territorial integrity or undermine our freedoms, our democracies, our rule of law.”
The remarks appeared aimed in part at Trump, though Carney did not name the president in his speech. The response in the room was a near-unanimous standing ovation from lawmakers representing the bloc’s 27 member countries.
Some European leaders, meanwhile, appear ready to grant Canada more favorable access to its closely guarded single market.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen caused a stir Wednesday when she suggested making Canada the E.U.’s first “associate member.” She also outlined an “alliance for the future” that would increase cooperation on defense, energy, critical minerals, artificial intelligence and other tech.
“This is a partnership not against anyone else, but for our common strength,” she said.
At a news conference Thursday, Carney stressed that Canada was “not in a position, nor seeking, to become a full member” of the European Union, a long and drawn-out process of regulatory alignment that can sometimes take decades for applicant countries.
“What matters is the substance,” he said of the associate membership proposal.
Carney has deep links to Europe, having served as governor of the Bank of England before his political homecoming propelled him to Canada’s leadership. He tapped into those ties Wednesday, bonding with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham at an Everton soccer match.
The two vowed “close cooperation” separate from the European Union, which Britain left six years ago, while Carney also announced that Canada had applied to join the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force, a military coalition of 10 European NATO countries.
Carney’s speech Thursday was hailed by some as a historic moment.
“A new world order really is being shaped and it is not how Trump’s USA imagined,” wrote British political commentator Alastair Campbell, former communications chief to ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair. “It used to be taken as read that the US President led the free world. No more,” he posted to X.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, a leftist who has repeatedly clashed with Trump, posted a playful image of the E.U. flag appended with the Canadian maple leaf.
Trump, for his part, has proved less welcoming of Canada’s European ambitions, calling the prospect of E.U. associate membership “laughable.” He told reporters Wednesday that “if it’s a good intention, that’s fine. If it’s a bad intention, we’ll put very heavy tariffs on Europe.”
While the specific label of “associate membership” appears to be an escalation, Canada and Europe have been pursuing closer ties for some time, partly to weather the storm Trump has unleashed on global trade.
The E.U. is Canada’s second-largest trading partner after the U.S., with a 2017 free trade agreement eliminating most tariffs between them, though some trading barriers remain.
They signed a defense partnership in June 2025, and Canada joined the E.U.’s military procurement program this February, giving its companies greater access to European contracts. Negotiations on a digital trade agreement followed in March.
“Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu,” Carney told the World Economic Forum in January.
Enthusiasm for closer ties has so far been accompanied by caution — on both sides.
“We’re not there,” Canada’s incoming ambassador to Brussels, Jonathan Wilkinson, told reporters in Strasbourg when asked about associate membership. “What we’re focused on is actually driving results.”
German government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius, meanwhile, said that while the idea was good, “we should reconsider the terminology — the label — associated with it.”
It is not clear how associate membership might work, nor what rights and responsibilities Canada might gain. The plan would need buy-in from all 27 members, an often fractious alliance with their own ideologies and geopolitical and domestic practical considerations.
Opening the door to a perceived lighter form of E.U. membership, just weeks after Icelanders voted against seeking to join the bloc, could risk dulling hopes of further E.U. expansion and revive fears of further disunity.
There are practical realities, too. Despite recent acrimony, tariff threats and trade boycotts, roughly 70% of Canadian exports go to the U.S., the two countries bound together by a 5,525-mile border, as well as centuries of cultural and historical ties.
The U.S.-Canada trading relationship, in which individual car parts often cross the border multiple times during the manufacturing process, cannot easily be replaced by trade that requires crossing thousands of miles of the Atlantic Ocean.
Nonetheless, Carney’s stated calculation is that, by diversifying their partners in trade, military and other areas, middle powers can reduce their reliance on big beasts such as the U.S. and improve their resilience in an increasingly belligerent world.
He will hope to strengthen this cast next month, when Canada and the E.U. are due to hold a summit in Montreal on Oct. 29 and 30. For him, the goal is to reduce dependence even while maintaining relationships with larger powers.
“The objective is not self-sufficiency,” he said Thursday. “It is collective resilience.”
