US president Donald Trump threatened Canada with 100 per cent tariffs against all its exports to the US if it makes a trade deal with China, escalating tensions between the US and its northern neighbour.
Mr Trump, referring to prime minister Mark Carney as “governor Carney”, said Canada was “sorely mistaken” for allowing China to increase its imports of electric vehicles. Mr Trump has trolled Canada about his desire for it to become the 51st US state.
“China will eat Canada alive, completely devour it, including the destruction of their businesses, social fabric, and general way of life,” Mr Trump said in a social media post.
“If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100% Tariff against all Canadian goods and products coming into the U.S.A.”
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The move comes as Mr Trump and Mr Carney have launched a war of words over the US president’s actions to shake the world order, including his efforts to seize control of Greenland.
China and Canada reached a wide-ranging agreement last week to lower trade barriers and rebuild ties, signalling a pivot in Canadian foreign policy and a break from alignment with Trump’s trade agenda.
Carney said he expects China to cut tariffs on Canadian rapeseed, also known as canola, after meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Friday, in the first visit by a Canadian leader to Beijing in eight years.
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In tandem, Canada will allow 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into its market at a tariff rate of about 6 per cent, removing a 100 per cent surtax. China will also offer visa-free travel to Canadians, Mr Carney said.
Soon after the deal was signed, the Canadian leader delivered a withering speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which he warned against coercion by great powers – an implicit denunciation of Trump’s leadership.
The US president responded by accusing Canada of ingratitude for American military protection and asserting that the country “lives because of the United States” – a claim Mr Carney rejected. Mr Trump also withdrew an invitation for Canada to join his so-called Board of Peace a week after Mr Carney had signed on to it.
Mr Trump said Canada opposes his planned “Golden Dome” missile-defence project, though it’s unclear if that is actually Ottawa’s position. US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said this week that Trump had asked Canada to take part in the project.
Mr Carney made waves at the annual gathering of global financial elites in Davos, when he called on so-called middle powers to band together to resist intimidation from great powers.
The prime minister did not name Mr Trump, but attacked several of his policies by condemning using “tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.”
It is not immediately clear what would meet Mr Trump’s threshold of a deal – Canada and China’s pact was essentially a trade, focused on agriculture and electric vehicles. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Also unclear was what any change would mean for how US tariffs apply to goods traded under the USMCA trade deal. Currently, goods under the deal are typically tariff free, an exemption that means the vast majority of Canadian exports to the US are facing no tariff.
The current tariff for non-excluded goods is 35 per cent, with different rates for certain sectors, such as steel and aluminium.
Relations between Washington and Ottawa have soured since Mr Trump’s return to the White House. The president’s decision to raise tariffs on goods from Canada triggered widespread outrage, with many Canadians boycotting American products and skipping travel to the US.
Canada, which historically has routed much of its trade south to the US, has responded by aggressively looking to increase trade ties east to Europe and west to Asia – including sealing a trade deal with China and seeking new links with India, two countries that openly feuded with Mr Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, in recent years. – Bloomberg
