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The US president on Saturday threatened to impose 100 per cent tariffs on Canada if it secured a deal with China as North American trade tensions burst back into the open.
Donald Trump accused Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney of trying to make Canada a “drop off port” for Chinese goods, and threatened to reignite a trade war after months of détente.
Canada and China agreed to lift trade barriers on electric vehicles and canola after Carney met Xi Jinping in Beijing last week as the two countries try to mend ties.
Trump initially encouraged Carney, saying: “if you can get a deal with China, you should do that.” But on Saturday the US president adopted a new tone in a post on Truth Social.
“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, using a title he has repeatedly used to goad Canadian leaders.
“If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100 per cent tariffs against all Canadian goods and products coming into the U. S. A,” he added.
Tension between Trump and Carney resurfaced this week at Davos. The Canadian leader received broad praise for a speech arguing that the rules-based international order was undergoing a “rupture, not a transition”. He called on the world’s “middle powers” to unite in response, without mentioning Trump’s name.
The speech to the World Economic Forum was widely viewed as a rebuke to the increasingly erratic behaviour of Trump, who is seeking to buy Greenland from Denmark, a Nato ally.
Trump hit back in his remarks to the forum. “Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”
In an important break with the US, which has in effect blocked imports of Chinese electric vehicles using high tariffs and restrictions, Canada agreed to accept imports of 49,000 Chinese electric cars with a 6.1 per cent tariff, down from 100 per cent.
Carney, the first Canadian prime minister to visit Beijing in almost a decade, is turning to the world’s second-largest economy as part of an effort to double exports to non-US partners over the next decade.
Other US officials criticised Canada at Davos. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said it was a bad idea for Canada to engage with China while US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent raised Alberta’s referendum push to break away from Canada.
“Albertans are very independent people,” said Bessent during an interview. “Rumours that they may have a referendum on whether they want to stay in Canada or not,” he said, adding that “people are talking. People want sovereignty. They want what the US has got.”
“There are lines that are being crossed here,” said Goldy Hyder, president of the Business Council of Canada. “The comments on Alberta sovereignty are entirely inappropriate.”
“We need our leaders to de-escalate this situation. It is going to have consequences that will do much harm to the citizens they govern who are looking for our governments to focus on the real issues that they are focused on, namely, their own personal economic well being,” he said.