President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Canada would “cease to exist” if it weren’t for the United States — comments that came just days before Canadians are set to vote in an election dominated by Trump’s remarks on the country’s economy and sovereignty.
Trump reinserted himself into Canada’s election during a signing ceremony inside the Oval Office, saying Canada “would cease to exist as a country” if the U.S. stopped buying its goods.
“I have to be honest, as a state, it works great,” said Trump, who previously threatened to make the country the 51st state through economic coercion.
Trump reiterated his claim that the U.S. doesn’t need anything from Canada — including autos and oil.
“We don’t really want Canada to make cars for us, to put it bluntly. We want to make our own cars,” Trump said.
In recent weeks, Trump has dialed back his talk of Canada becoming the 51st state. He stopped saying it after a call with new Prime Minister Mark Carney last month.
Trump also suggested Wednesday that he might increase import taxes on cars from Canada. Trump has a 25% tariff on autos, although there are some exemptions related to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade, and automakers are seeking other policy changes to minimize the tariff burden. Trump has separate 25% tariffs on Canadian goods — ostensibly to address drug smuggling into the U.S.
“I really don’t want cars from Canada,” Trump said. “So when I put tariffs on Canada, they’re paying 25%, but that could go up in terms of cars. When we put tariffs on, all we’re doing is we’re saying, ‘We don’t want your cars, in all due respect.’”
Trump cautioned that he’s not currently considering additional auto tariffs, but he said there could be an increase.
Carney said last week that eliminating trade barriers within Canada would benefit Canadians as he made his case to retain power ahead of an April 28 vote. Carney has set a goal of free trade within the country’s 10 provinces and three territories by July 1. Canada has long had interprovincial trade barriers.
“We can give ourselves far more than Donald Trump can ever take away,” Carney said. “We can have one economy. This is within our grasp.”
Carney said the relationship Canada has had with the United States for the past 40 years has fundamentally changed because of Trump’s tariffs. Trump’s trade war and threats to make Canada the 51st state have infuriated Canadians and led to a surge in Canadian nationalism that has bolstered Liberal Party poll numbers.
(AP)
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3 Responses
Unfortunately, President Trump is handing Liberals in Canada a huge victory.
They were 20 points behind in the polls before the President started making his comments about Canada, and they turned around and are now LEADING against the Conservatives, who are now in danger of losing to the Liberals AGAIN.
The Liberals in Canada are no friend to the Jews, and have done SERIOUS damage to us on a number of very important issues.
The irony is that the Conservative leader is among the best ever and a huge friend to Jews and would work far better with Trump too.
Trump is being ridiculous and shooting himself in the foot.
Canada was founded as the “not the United States”. Americans were Whigs who renamed themselves Patriots. The Tories, a.k.a. Loyalists, became Canadians. Subsequently, if someone was moving to America from Europe and wanted to be an American, they could (the USA had open borders until World War I); if they didn’t want to be an America, they chose Canada.
Canada remains much more like Britain (and Europe). It has a VAT. It has a king, with a parliament that choses a prime minister (none of the American style separation of powers). In many matters such a religious right and civil liberties, it is much less liberal than the United States (though under Biden and Trump, the US has been trying to close the gap). They have a comprehensive national health insurance, and carried over the British concept that the right to bare arms is only for the chosen few.
Canada is a leading customer of American industrial exports, and a major supplier of oil and gas. Trump has thrown all that out the window. Canada was one of the few countries to support American intervention in the Middle East (don’t expect that to happen again).
Canada was about to elect a pro-American leadership that would be friendly towards Jews (by a landslide), until Trump intervened and shifted the balance towards a party much less inclines to be friendly towards America (or towards Jews).
Actually, Trump is correct in that had the United States remained British, Canada would not exist, and what are now Canadian provinces would be provinces of a larger British North America (unless Britain lost World War II, which would have been unlikely – in which case what is now Canada, as well as what is now the United States, would have been “protectorates” of the Third Reich).