As America staggered in the dust clouds from 9/11, Canada allowed our airplanes to land there. The town of Gander, in Newfoundland, population 10,000, hosted 7,000 people who had been aboard airplanes that had to divert after the U.S. closed its airspace. Not only did they provide lodging, food, prescription drugs (for free) and phones to call home (also for free), but they arranged tours of the town, concerts and even meals of stewed moose.

After Hurricane Katrina killed more than a thousand people along the Gulf Coast, Canada sent three ships and a Coast Guard vessel carrying water, large tents, cots, lumber, pollution cleanup equipment and insect spray. Canadian sailors helped clean the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi and local schools.

During the Vietnam War, when young American men hustled to Canada to avoid the draft, at least 20,000 Canadian men volunteered to fight at our side and at least 134 of them were killed.

Minnesota knows Canada. We go to the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Pass down its lonely Hwy. 308 en route to the Northwest Angle. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police sometimes perform at the Minnesota State Fair. We’re probably more like Canada than we are like Texas, just like Texas is probably more like Mexico than it is like Minnesota.

You all know the ways Canada has enriched our lives. The fierce hockey competition. Neil Young, Margaret Atwood and (be still my heart) Ryan Gosling. Place names like Moosejaw, Yellow Knife and Medicine Hat stir the imagination. Let’s not forget Canada’s contribution to world cuisine — poutine, maple syrup and the best instant iced tea. Canada lends its wide-open landscapes for films like “The Revenant” and “Rambo: First Blood.”

And on a personal note, from the plains of Saskatchewan, Canada gave me the best sister-in-law anybody could ask for.

Now Trump comes in and smashes all those relationships with his bullying and digs, calling its premier “governor,” threatening to make a sovereign nation the 51st state. His erratic “now you see ’em, now you don’t” tariffs that have rattled businesses on both sides of the border and inspired retaliatory tariffs from Canada.

Canadians are taking American liquor off store shelves, booing the American national anthem and baring their hearts on social media. Ontario Premier Douglas Ford threatened to cut off electricity the province sells to the United States. But Canadians are so kind that one Canadian on social media begged Ford not to because she didn’t want America to suffer.

It is telling that wildlife photos of a Canada goose fighting off an eagle has gone viral in Canada.

Not that everything has always been perfect between us. No relationship ever runs completely smoothly. Canada have had tariffs against American milk, and there’ve been minor trade kerfuffles in the past. And there was that little incident at the border involving the confiscation of my pepper spray. (Who knew pepper spray was illegal in Canada? They assured me the Mounties would protect me if needed.)

Trump could never understand how Minnesotans feel about Canada because he doesn’t seem to have buddies. He has family. He has sycophants. But I doubt he has the kind of buddies who are there for you, not because they’re related by blood, but because they want to be. When he married Melania, his best men were his sons.

He was a bully as a kid and he’s a bully now, and apparently bullying our neighbors is the kind of thing he wants to do.

The good thing about friendship is you can squabble and then go back to being friends. But who knows how the next four years of a Trump administration will play out? Will he actually attempt to annex Canada? Is that why he’s letting Russian President Vladimir Putin have his way in Ukraine? Does he want to crush Canadian will the way he has crushed the will and independence of the Republican Party? Or is he all sound and fury, signifying nothing?

We don’t know. But I can tell you one thing: Canada will have a hard time trusting the U.S. again. If we put someone like Trump in charge, twice now, who’s to say we won’t do it again and again? Republicans wield all the power in D.C. at the moment and they’re not trying to stop him. When someone just comes in and rips up trade agreements because he wants to, why should you trust him with anything?

Maybe Trump is attacking Canada out of jealousy. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is far better looking. And I bet Trudeau also has plenty of good friends.