The Art of the American Extortion
CASE A: Canada's F-35 Contract and Trump's Tariff Threat (2026) According to The Independent , Mark Carney, former head of the Bank of England and currently a top contender for Canadian leadership, faces calls to scrap Canada’s F-35 fighter jet contract with the United States. This pressure mounts in the wake of threats from a former US president, identified as Donald Trump, who reportedly vowed a
50 percent tariff on Canada if it failed to certify a number of Gulfstream fighter jets – a detail that, upon closer inspection, appears to conflate a previous 2018 dispute over Bombardier CSeries jets with the current F-35 discussion. The F-35 deal itself, valued at approximately C$19 billion, was finalized in 2023 for 88 stealth jets after a decade-long procurement process. The narrative
positions Canada as a victim of unilateral US economic leverage, with national security assets becoming bargaining chips. CASE B: South Korea's THAAD Deployment and China's Economic Retaliation (2017) In 2017, South Korea agreed to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system, a US-made defense system, ostensibly to counter North Korean threats. China, however, viewed
the THAAD deployment as a direct threat to its own security interests, arguing its radar could surveil Chinese territory. Despite being a sovereign defense decision, Beijing initiated widespread economic retaliation against South Korea. This included restricting Chinese tourist groups, boycotting South Korean goods, and shutting down Lotte Group stores in China. The economic fallout, estimated at