Ursula von der Leyen stood before the European Parliament and proposed something that has never existed in Union law: Canada as the first associate member. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was sitting in the chamber. The reaction from Washington did not wait even a day.

Donald Trump, asked at Charlotte airport what he thought of the idea, called it ridiculous. Then he added a sentence worth reading twice: if he judged it a hostile act, he would impose very high tariffs or completely cut off trade with Europe across several sectors. Not with Canada. With Europe.

"Canada is a desperate trading partner," Trump said. He did leave room for a deal if the intentions turn out to be good - and if not, he warned, exceptionally high tariffs follow.

The logic here deserves attention. One sovereign state negotiates with another sovereign bloc about a format for cooperation, and a third state announces a punishment because it was not consulted. In the Balkans we recognise that vocabulary without a translation.

A proposal that surprised even the people it concerns

Associate membership does not exist as a status in European Union law. Which means von der Leyen offered something that still has to be invented, and she offered it in front of cameras rather than after quiet consultations with European capitals. Those capitals, it was reported, were taken by surprise.

More interesting still is that the Canadians are distancing themselves too. The incoming Canadian ambassador to the EU, Jonathan Wilkinson, quickly damped down the speculation in Strasbourg: "We are not at that stage yet. We are focused on delivering concrete results." Carney, for his part, called for a solid alliance with the Union, but was careful not to endorse the associate membership idea directly.

So: the Commission made an offer, the party concerned stepped back, and Washington is already threatening. Three reactions to one speech, and not one of them looks like a coordinated plan.

Why Canada is looking toward Europe at all

Trump's remarks come in the middle of the trade war between the US and Canada, which is pushing Ottawa to reduce its economic dependence on Washington. That is the whole context. A country that leaned on one market for decades suddenly looks for a second way out - and immediately discovers that the looking itself is treated as betrayal.

Does that sentence sound familiar? A state that wants to widen its options, and a partner who reads that as hostility rather than as the normal behaviour of a sovereign country. The road to the Union, it seems, is not difficult only for those waiting at its door.

The question that remains is not whether Canada will become an associate member - that status is still a term with no content. The question is how long Europe will keep receiving messages like this without answering them.