Trump calls the U.S.-Canada border an 'artificial line.' That's not entirely true

When President Trump hosted Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney successful the Oval Office, speech turned not lone to the narration betwixt the 2 countries, but to the borderline itself.

Echoing a operation helium has used successful caller months, Trump described the U.S.-Canada borderline arsenic an "artificially drawn line" — and suggested it should beryllium erased.

"Somebody drew that enactment galore years agone … similar with a ruler, conscionable a consecutive enactment close crossed the apical of the country," Trump said astatine Tuesday's meeting. "When you look astatine that beauteous formation, erstwhile it's unneurotic — I'm a precise creator idiosyncratic — but erstwhile I looked astatine that beaut, I said, 'That's the mode it was meant to be.' "

Trump has acceptable his sights connected Canada since taking office, talking repeatedly of making it the 51st U.S. state. He besides deed the state — 1 of the U.S.' apical trading partners — with a 25% tariff connected astir goods, further antagonizing Canadians. That backlash is credited with propelling Carney — who campaigned connected lasting up to the president — to an unexpected predetermination victory past month.

Carney told Trump that Canada is not for sale, and "won't beryllium for sale, ever."

But by describing the bound enactment arsenic artificial, Trump seems to suggest otherwise, says Jon Parmenter, a past prof astatine Cornell University. He says the president's characterization of the borderline downplays "the information that it has a complex, heavy past and that it is an important portion of mundane beingness connected the North American continent."

"It's a existent thing," says Parmenter, who teaches a class connected the U.S.-Canada border. "And it concerns me, arsenic a historian, to perceive radical dismissing it arsenic thing that's artificial … oregon successful a sense, illegitimate."

Carney aboriginal told reporters helium was "glad you could not archer what was going done my mind" during that conversation.

The U.S.-Canadian borderline is the longest planetary borderline successful the world, stretching 5,525 miles crossed North America. Much of the borderline looks similar a consecutive enactment due to the fact that it fundamentally is: The enactment mostly follows the 49th parallel (of latitude northbound of the equator), portion a smaller swath traces the 45th parallel.

The borderline is technically man-made: It was drawn connected a representation by the governments of America and Britain, which controlled Canada until 1867. In that way, Parmenter says, it — similar each borders — is simply a construct.

"These are things that radical determine makes consciousness astatine a peculiar infinitesimal successful time," helium says.

But conscionable due to the fact that it's not a people occurring borderline — similar a upland scope oregon an water — doesn't mean it's not legitimate.

"The borderline is artificial successful the consciousness that it's not thing that … radical surviving successful proximity to it had immoderate benignant of relation successful making," helium explains. "But it's not artificial successful the consciousness that it's not real, and that it doesn't matter, and determination aren't real-world consequences for traversing it successful a mode that is deemed to beryllium illicit."

How the borderline came to be 

The U.S.-Canada bound was shaped by a series of treaties that took spot betwixt 1783 and 1925.

The archetypal was the Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolution, recognized American independency and acceptable the Mississippi River arsenic the western borderline of the caller U.S. — which continued to grow passim the 19th century.

Years later, the Convention of 1818 officially established the borderline betwixt the U.S. and British North America — aboriginal Canada — astatine the 49th parallel, from Lake of the Woods, Minn., to the Rocky Mountains. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 extended the borderline to the Pacific Ocean.

"People benignant of sat down and were going backmost and forth, and lines of latitude became the easiest mode to resoluteness a quality implicit who got what," Parmenter says.

Stephen Hornsby, a prof of geography and Canadian studies astatine the University of Maine, says the prime of the 49th parallel successful peculiar was nary coincidence.

The British wanted to sphere the bluish portion of the continent for the fur trade, portion the U.S. wanted arsenic overmuch of the Mississippi basin arsenic imaginable for cultivation settlement, Hornsby explains. They decided to divided the onshore up based connected the stream systems, which astatine the clip were the main mode of traveling astir the continent. 

The 49th parallel, Hornsby says, made for an "extraordinarily convenient dividing line." Almost each of the rivers to the northbound travel retired done the St. Lawrence River strategy oregon the Hudson Bay, portion rivers to the southbound travel into the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico.

"Although it seems similar a consecutive enactment crossed the land, erstwhile you commencement to look astatine the stream systems and the larger watersheds, it's fundamentally a dividing enactment betwixt the watersheds northbound and southbound of that line," Hornsby says, adding that "it each makes cleanable sense" connected a representation of North American stream systems.

It didn't needfully marque cleanable consciousness successful existent life, however. Parmenter says lines of latitude didn't instrumentality into relationship geographical formations oregon the accepted territories of Indigenous radical already surviving there.

"There are Indigenous nations whose territories really spanned what became the U.S.-Canada border, who travel to find retired erstwhile the survey happens, 'Oh, conjecture what, this is going close done the middle,' " helium says. The Mohawk assemblage of Akwesasne, successful bluish New York, is 1 example.

How the borderline is demarcated 

Over the ensuing decades, arsenic radical moved westward and north, the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Russia negotiated immoderate 2 twelve agreements, conventions and treaties to redefine the border, according to the International Boundary Commission (IBC) — which itself was created by pact successful 1908 to survey and representation the border.

"It's a precise piecemeal process," Parmenter says. "It benignant of fundamentally is progressively drawn successful a westward direction, but implicit time. So the Great Lakes country gets resolved, the prairie country gets resolved. The Pacific Coast and Alaska get resolved. And what you person near implicit is the longest planetary bound connected the look of the Earth, 1 that's a precise divers border."

Parmenter says determination are assorted levels of "intensity and frequence of crossing arsenic you spell eastbound to west." Some stretches of the borderline are actively monitored, including with helicopters and drones. But others, particularly successful distant areas, are marked lone by monuments, similar an obelisk oregon strategically placed rocks.

"In galore places, it is simply a precise permeable border," helium says.

As portion of its ngo to thin the border, the IBC says it inspects and maintains implicit 8,000 monuments and notation points and 1,000 survey power stations. It besides keeps a 20-foot wide treeless portion — called the vista — on the onshore bound line.

"To marque the bound disposable and unmistakable, we wide and support a swath called a vista that extends 10 feet connected either broadside of the enactment done dense forests, implicit upland ranges, crossed wetlands and highlands and immoderate of the astir rugged terrain North America has to offer," its website reads.

The vista, besides called the Slash, mostly spans distant areas but is disposable from certain onshore crossings, arsenic good arsenic Google Earth.

Where things stand

Parmenter, a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, says, "People are connected alert successful Canada astir this."

He says determination is overmuch much consciousness of the borderline successful Canada due to the fact that specified a precocious percent of the colonisation — by some estimates, arsenic overmuch arsenic 90% — lives wrong 150 miles of it.

Proportionally, acold less Americans woody with the bluish borderline connected a regular ground — and until precocious person been overmuch much focused connected its confederate borderline with Mexico, helium says.

While the U.S.-Canada borderline has been unchangeable for a century, it's besides existent that it was renegotiated aggregate times successful its aboriginal years. But Parmenter doesn't deliberation that means a alteration is apt now, particularly fixed Trump's tariffs and the wide authorities of affairs.

"It's ever the lawsuit that successful immoderate relationship, things tin get better, and I deliberation that some sides would hold that determination are immoderate ways successful which the absorption of this peculiar borderline could beryllium improved," helium says. "But the mode to spell astir it is done sober and thoughtful negotiations, not ultimatums, not utmost rhetoric, not speech of annexation, due to the fact that each that's done is to alienate Canadian people."