Trump's next target? Canada's go-to think-tank in Washington

Alexander Panetta · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 17, 2025 6:52 PM EDT | Last Updated: 18 minutes ago

After Canadian steel, aluminum, potash, energy and possibly cars, U.S. President Donald Trump whitethorn person a caller target: Canada-related scholarship.

A apical think-tank that studies Canada-U.S. relations present finds itself nether menace successful an enforcement bid signed by the president past Friday.

Trump ordered a fig of institutions gutted — eliminated to the top grade possible, reduced to their minimum ineligible functions.

That database includes the enactment that oversees Voice of America, and, of peculiar relevance to Canada, the Wilson Center, which has institutes focused connected Canada, Mexico, China and Russia.

Its Canada Institute is simply a longstanding destination of prime for Canadian newsmakers visiting Washington: It offers a venue for quality conferences, and discussions, conscionable implicit a artifact from the White House. 

Prime ministers, premiers, absorption politicians and civilian servants person spoken astatine the Wilson Center's Canada Institute. It has besides provided fellowships, including to the precocious Alberta premier Jim Prentice portion helium was moving connected his publication astir vigor policy.

"This is decidedly a daze to the system," said Laura Dawson, a Canada-U.S. commercialized adept who erstwhile led the institute.

"It's the lone Canada-U.S. think-tank successful the world. There's thing other similar it."

The enactment is present scrambling to measure the implications of Trump's order; it indispensable study connected its plans to the White House by the extremity of this week.

It's not wholly wide what this means.

Trump's bid calls connected the organizations to trim their activities to functions enshrined successful law. Dawson says that could mean arsenic small arsenic maintaining its tiny museum, safeguarding immoderate of Woodrow Wilson's statesmanlike papers, and organizing 20 fellowships per twelvemonth crossed the full organization.

But the archetypal 1968 instrumentality that created the centre doesn't notation its assorted institutes. In addition, the enactment gets entree to respective floors successful a national building, positive astir one-third of its funding, $15 cardinal USD, comes from the national government.

The caput of the Wilson Center released a missive Monday saying his squad was crafting plans to comply with the order.

Call for donations

Mark Green, a erstwhile Republican congressman, is present president of the bipartisan think-tank, succeeding a Democrat.

He says the statute allows the Wilson Center to judge donations from individuals and institutions, and that donations are much important than ever.

Green called the outpouring of enactment pursuing Trump's announcement gratifying.

"When Congress passed the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Act of 1968, it gave america a peculiar charter and mandate to symbolize and fortify 'the fruitful narration betwixt the satellite of learning and the satellite of nationalist affairs,'" helium wrote successful a missive to supporters. 

"As galore of you person said successful your outreach to us, that enactment — of scholarship-driven investigation and programming — has ne'er been much important."

Dawson called it stunning that a state similar Canada, truthful intimately connected to the U.S., has lone 1 think-tank with a full-time operation studying the bilateral relationship, and that it mightiness present disappear.

"Canada is truly astatine a nonaccomplishment successful its quality to get its dependable heard successful Washington," she said. "The Canada Institute wasn't a lobbying organization. It it didn't prime sides and it didn't prime favourites. It conscionable provided a venue, and a abstraction successful for Canadians and Americans to speech to each other."