The Canadian government has made quite a show of its rhetorical shift away from the United States on trade, defence, and foreign policy alignments—presenting itself as a “middle power” in a new international order. That rhetorical shift often fails to stand up to the reality of deep U.S. integration—and one place where that contradiction is extremely clear is Canada’s relationship with Cuba, where Canada is actually acting less independently from the U.S. than it has historically.