JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
It is safe to say the relationship between the U.S. and Canada is at a low point. In a pointed speech earlier this week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the 25% import taxes that were imposed by the Trump administration.
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PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Now, it's not in my habit to agree with The Wall Street Journal. But Donald, they point out that even though you're a very smart guy, this is a very dumb thing to do.
SUMMERS: As of today, those tariffs have been paused until at least April 2. Still, what Trudeau and Canadians are particularly infuriated by is President Trump's suggestion that Canada become a 51st state. Our colleagues from The Indicator, Wailin Wong and Robert Smith, take a look at how our two countries are already linked, and what we could perhaps learn from our neighbors to the north.
ROBERT SMITH, BYLINE: We called up a Canadian economist, Armine Yalnizyan, and from the get-go, she had a message for Donald Trump.
ARMINE YALNIZYAN: The dream of the 51st state is fantasyland. It will never happen.
SMITH: OK. After she gave me a million cultural reasons why Canada does not want to join the U.S., we moved on to the economic reasons.
WAILIN WONG, BYLINE: And the big one is that a combined U.S. and Canada would not be richer.
YALNIZYAN: Oh, we'd be exactly the same. We are about as integrated as you could get.
SMITH: It really started when we fought together against the Nazis in World War II. We both built these factories to make guns and tanks. And when the war was over, these factories turned to consumer goods, things like cars. U.S. factories started to get parts from Canadian factories and vice versa.
WONG: But what really unites Canada and the U.S. economically is that we face the same existential challenge. Just like the U.S., Canada had a baby boom.
SMITH: And just like the U.S., those boomers are now retiring, and that changes an economy, challenges it. Both countries need more workers.
YALNIZYAN: More people are aging out of the labor market than coming into it. If you don't like immigrants, expect an economic slowdown. If you don't like trade, expect an economic slowdown.
SMITH: Armine means suggests that the U.S. could learn from Canada in three big economic areas.
WONG: The first is immigration. For a long time, Canada has had one of the most innovative immigration systems in the world. They offered visas based on the points system, where potential immigrants were ranked based on education, work experience and language skills.
YALNIZYAN: It has been one of the great sources of our economic resilience in Canada.
WONG: She says has been because they're struggling with the immigration rules right now in Canada. They let in a lot of people temporarily after the pandemic started, when they needed more workers. Then there was a backlash, and they tightened the border.
SMITH: We really are the same in some ways.
WONG: But the fact remains that in Canada, about a quarter of its population is foreign born. It's only about 13% in the U.S.
SMITH: The second thing Armine says that the U.S. can learn from Canada is its health care system.
WONG: I knew this was coming - universal healthcare.
SMITH: Absolutely. The government of Canada runs health care. And yes, people complain about it all the time. But overall, Canadians pay less and live longer than in the U.S.
WONG: So smarter immigration, universal health care, and the third thing Armine offers the U.S. as a suggestion, a little something for the matriarchy.
YALNIZYAN: The last 20 years, Canadian women have been more in the workforce than the United States, which reverses history since the 1960s. The way we did it is by providing women not only access to great post-secondary education where they could develop their human capital, but they could deploy it because they had access to cheap and high-quality child care.
SMITH: Cheap, high-quality child care - who would have thought?
WONG: I don't even know what that is - never heard of it.
SMITH: I mean, cheap relative to the United States. Armine says the United States can just steal this idea from Canada.
YALNIZYAN: Yeah, you could learn from us without absorbing us.
SMITH: (Laughter).
YALNIZYAN: You can absorb the lesson without absorbing the country.
SMITH: That's the Canadian spirit. I love it. Robert Smith.
WONG: Wailin Wong, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF DRAKE SONG, "STORIES ABOUT MY BROTHER") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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