President Donald Trump further ripped into Canada as the U.S. trade war with the country escalates, trashing its leadership as the “worst” of all countries he’s dealt with.
While Trump’s insults against Canada are nothing new, his descriptor of Canadian leaders as the worst is a step up, especially given it puts the U.S.’s northern neighbor below Iran, whose fanatical leadership Trump has repeatedly derided as insane and murderous. He made the recent criticisms in a Sunday post on Truth Social.
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“One of the Worst Abusers is Canada. I don’t want Canadian cars, I don’t want Canadian parts, I don’t want Canadian anything. They’ve been ripping us off for decades, and it’s going to stop,” he said after claiming he saved the U.S. automobile industry through tariffs.
“This should have happened long ago with other Presidents, just as stopping Iran should have happened long ago. They want to be treated like a State, but they aren’t one. I deal with the Leadership of many Countries, but I find Canada to be the worst. They are entitled no longer!” Trump concluded.
Earlier on Sunday, in an appearance on ABC News’s This Week, Ontario Premier Doug Ford derided Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario to Lake America, calling it “something out of Saturday Night Live.”
“No one is going to call it Lake America,” he said.
When asked about the exchange of insults between him and Trump, Ford ceded that it wasn’t the best way of going about things, but that he had to stand up for Canada.
“It got heated. But you know, you’ve got to eventually stand up to someone that just continuously attacks our country and insults our country. We believe in Canadian sovereignty. And I know Americans believe in having a sovereign Canada as well. It’s unfortunate that he stoops down to that level,” he said.
After several months of relative inactivity between the U.S. and Canada, tensions flared last month when Trump signed three proclamations imposing 50% tariffs on a variety of Canadian goods on July 20, which were set to take effect in mid-August. Negotiators worked through August to strike a favorable trade deal, and Trump even delayed the tariffs’ implementation as negotiations made progress. Just hours before the deadline on Aug. 21, negotiations entirely collapsed, and the 50% tariffs took effect on nearly $20 billion in Canadian exports.
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Each side blamed the other for talks collapsing, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed “dollar for dollar” retaliatory tariffs, which are set to take effect on Sept. 8.
A war of words has ensued, with rhetoric escalating this week. Raising the stakes, Trump began floating the idea of the Lake Ontario name change on Tuesday, which rapidly solidified into a concrete move on Thursday. His proclamations renaming the body of water further inflamed outrage in Canada.
