Trump admin talks with Canadian separatists 'irresponsible as hell': ex-senior US diplomat

President Donald Trump is “irresponsible as hell” for engaging with right-wing separatists in the Canadian province of Alberta, according to a former senior US diplomat.

“It’s really irresponsible for the United States to be engaging with these kinds of people, because it just encourages behavior that cannot be in the U.S. national interest,” the former senior State Department official told NBC News, comparing it to the Canadian government meeting with Puerto Rican independence groups. (The United States entered World War I in 1917, three years after the conflict started, because the German Empire negotiated with Mexico about possibly conquering American territory.)

Speaking anonymously, the ex-diplomat added that the Trump administration’s behavior is "highly unusual,” especially against a neighboring country.

Dennis Modry, a co-founder of the Alberta Prosperity Project, and party attorney Jeffrey Rath told NBC News that he attended three meetings with Trump officials on April 22, September 29 and December 16 at the State Department’s headquarters in Washington, adding another meeting is planned for February. In addition to talking about separating from the Canadian government, which Prime Minister Mark Carney has described as “treason,” the party also claims to have discussed forming its own military and adopting the US dollar as its currency.

By contrast, the White House joined the State and Treasury Departments in downplaying the discussions, claiming the US made no commitments and there were no senior officials present. One senior State Department official insisted there will not be another meeting, contracting Modry’s claims.

A recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute found that only 8 percent of Albertans definitely want to secede and form their own country, with another 21 percent saying they “leaned” that way. By contrast 57 percent of Albertans said they definitely wanted to stay in Canada, while another 8 percent only “leaned” in that direction. In response to the Trump administration’s efforts to circumvent the Albertan majority and potentially cause a secession, Carney has publicly asked the US to “respect Canadian sovereignty.”

Trump has antagonized Canada in myriad other ways since assuming office in his second term. In response to Canada reportedly negotiating independent trade agreements with China, Trump threatened to refuse to allow the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge connecting Canada’s Ontario to America’s Michigan. Trump’s tariffs against Canada are hurting both Americans and Canadians in their pocketbooks, stirring Republican fears that Democrats could capitalize on the tariff issue to win in the midterm elections. The president has even blustered about conquering Canada and turning it into America’s “51st state.”

In response to this, last month Carney told a summit of world leaders in Davos, Switzerland that “middle powers” like Canada must distance themselves from the United States.

“I will talk today about the breaking of the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a brutal reality where the geopolitics of the great powers is not subject to any constraint,” Carney told the assembled world leaders.

“Every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”

In contrast to the recent Albertan sovereignty movement, which involves far right separatists, the Canadian province of Quebec has had a sovereignty movement tracing back decades and based around linguistic differences (most Canadians speak English but most in Quebec speak French). Yet notably, even in Quebec most residents wish to stay in Canada: A survey from Pallas Data found that 54 percent of respondents would oppose sovereignty while only 35 percent would support it.

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