While Canada is “grateful” to its neighbor “for the outsized role it has played in the world” and will try to convince the United States that remaining in that role is in the interest of America and the “free world,” this “is ultimately not our decision to make,” she noted. “It is a choice Americans must make for themselves.” (While Freeland may have intended to signal respect for American sovereignty, this line also carried a faint whiff of condescension—recalling the paternalistic way American leaders have long addressed other nations. Just last month, Trump told Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia that they faced “a choice between two futures”—one plagued by terrorism and one free of such violence—“and it is a choice America CANNOT make for you.”)

“Our friend and ally has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership,” Freeland observed. “International relationships that had seemed immutable for 70 years are being called into question.”

First, before exploring what all this meant for Canada, recognition of the boss’s hard work were in order: “In blood, in treasure, in strategic vision, in leadership, America has paid the lion’s share” of the cost for building an international system after World War II on the foundation of free trade, U.S. military and diplomatic alliances, and liberal rules and institutions for governing how countries conduct themselves and resolve disputes. “For their unique, seven-decades-long contribution to our shared peace ‎and prosperity, and on behalf of all Canadians, I would like to profoundly thank our American friends,” Freeland said.

Then came a plea for the boss to stick with it: On issues ranging from trade to terrorism, Canadians would keep “open hands and open hearts extended to our American friends, seeking to make common cause as we have so often in the past.”

And, finally, a vision for the way forward if the boss did indeed step down: It’s now clear that the “rest of us” need to “set our own clear and sovereign course,” Freeland argued, alluding to the ways in which Trump’s nationalism and protectionism were steering the United States in a different direction. That course, she said, will involve working with Western allies and emerging powers elsewhere in the world to uphold the postwar international order. Canada, which currently depends on the U.S. for much of its trade, will seek to “diversify [its] trade worldwide,” since trading shouldn’t be considered a “zero-sum game.” The Canadian government will draw closer to European partners through free-trade agreements and NATO deployments in Eastern Europe. And it will strengthen its military so that Canada won’t be left as an American “client state.” On Wednesday, the government followed through on this last promise, announcing that it will increase defense spending from roughly $14 billion today to $24 billion within a decade—a surprising move for an administration that earlier this year ended Canada’s direct combat role against ISIS.