President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to impose 100% tariffs on all Canadian goods and products as the U.S.’s neighbors to the north strengthen ties with China.
The move comes after Prime Minister Mark Carney criticized Trump at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday and met with China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing earlier in January to discuss closer economic and cybersecurity cooperation. The two leaders announced a new “strategic partnership,” promising to foster greater mutual investment between their countries.
“If Governor Carney thinks he is going to make Canada a “Drop Off Port” for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “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. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
After the Beijing meeting, Canada dropped its tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and placed Beijing back under a “most-favored nation” tariff rate of 6.1%. In return, China promised to reduce tariffs on Canadian canola seed from 85% to 15%.
“More recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited,” Carney said in his Davos, Switzerland speech, “Stop invoking the ‘rules-based international order’ as though it still functions as advertised.”
He added, “Call the system what it is: a period of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as a weapon of coercion.”
Trump was unhappy with Carney’s speech, calling the prime minister “ungrateful” during his speech at Davos on Wednesday.
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“Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way, they should be grateful also, but then I watched your prime minister yesterday, he wasn’t so grateful,” Trump said. “They should be grateful to us, Canada. Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”
The exchange at Davos came after many months of tense relations between the United States and Canada. Carney’s shift toward China reflects a broader strategy to diversify Canada’s international trading partners and make itself less dependent on its southern neighbor.
