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President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to impose a 100 per cent tariff on goods imported from Canada if the trade deal with China goes ahead.
Trump said in a social media post that if Canadian Prime Minister Mark 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.”
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Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said in a statement that threat of 100 per cent tariffs is “further degradation of the free and fair trade system we took for granted for decades.”
He pointed out that President Trump had last week called the Canada-China agreement a “good thing,” and a deal that Canada “should be doing”.
“Canada must continue to be pragmatic when dealing with other countries, stand up for own interests, diversify markets and work together to secure the best trade deals wherever possible,” Moe said.
“The China-Canada trade deal does just that and is a good deal for Canada. In the same way, we must continue to work to maintain CUSMA (Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement) because its a good deal not only for Canada, but for North America.”
While Trump has waged a trade war over the past year, Canada this month negotiated a deal to lower tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in return for lower import taxes on Canadian agricultural products like canola.
The deal will see Canada allow up to 49,000 Chinese-made electric vehicles into the Canadian market annually, with a 6.1 per cent tariff applied to their import.
In exchange, China is expected to drop duties on canola seed to 15 per cent by March, and drop its tariffs on canola meal, lobsters, crabs and peas from March to at least the end of 2026.
Carney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s threat came amid an escalating war of words with Carney as the Republican president’s push to acquire Greenland strained the NATO alliance. Trump had commented while at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week that “Canada lives because of the United States.”
Carney shot back that his nation can be an example that the world does not have to bend toward autocratic tendencies.
Trump later revoked his invitation to Carney to join the president’s “Board of Peace” that he is forming to try to resolve global conflicts.
Trump’s push to acquire Greenland has come after he has repeatedly needled Canada over its sovereignty and suggested it also be absorbed the United States as a 51st state.
Many Western allies are suspicious of the “Board of Peace”, which is chaired by Trump and was initially formed to focus on maintaining the ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas but has grown into something skeptics fear could rival the United Nations.
President Donald Trump enters the stage for his special address during the 56th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (Gian Ehrenzeller/Keystone via AP)
Trump gives and he takes away
At the forum, Trump spoke of imposing tariffs on Switzerland — which he ultimately lowered — because the country’s leader “rubbed me the wrong way” during a phone call.
Before shelving sweeping tariffs on multiple European countries, Trump pressed Denmark to “say yes” to the U.S. push to control Greenland “and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no and we will remember,” he said, imperiling the NATO alliance.
Over his decades in public life, Trump has never been one for niceties. But even by his standards, the tumult of the past week stood out because it crystallized his determination to erase the rules-based order that has governed U.S. foreign policy — and by extension most of the Western world — since the Second World War.
The president and his supporters have dismissed that approach as inefficient, overly focused on compromise and unresponsive to the needs of people contending with rapid economic change.
But in its place, Trump is advancing a system that is poorly understood and could prove far less stable, driven by the whims of a single, often mercurial, leader who regularly demonstrates that personal flattery or animus can shape his decisions.
Returning to the U.S. from Davos, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said the phrase she heard “over and over” was that “we are entering this new world order” as she described a sense of confusion among allies.
“It may be you just had a bad telephone call with the president and now you’re going to have tariffs directed at you,” she told reporters.
“This lack of stability and reliability, I think, is causing what were traditionally reliable trade partners to be saying to other countries, ‘Hey, maybe you and I should talk because I’m not sure about what’s going on with the United States.’”
The Trump-centric approach to governing
The Trump-centric approach to governing is hardly surprising for someone who accepted his first Republican presidential nomination in 2016 by declaring that “I alone can fix” the nation’s problems.
As he settles into his second term with a far more confident demeanor than his first, he has delighted supporters with his to-the-victor-goes-the-spoils style.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser, recently told the Atlantic that Trump is pursuing a “maximalist strategy” and that he must keep going “until you meet resistance.”
“And we haven’t met any resistance,” Bannon said.
That’s certainly true in Washington, where the Republican-controlled Congress has done little to check Trump’s impulses.
But leaders of other countries, who have spent much of Trump’s administration trying to find ways to work with him, are increasingly vocal.
Carney is quickly emerging as a leader of a movement for countries to find ways to link up and counter the U.S. Speaking in Davos ahead of Trump, Carney said, “Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.”
“In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: to compete with each other for favor or to combine to create a third path with impact,” he continued.
“We should not allow the rise of hard powers to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong — if we choose to wield it together.”
Culture Minister Marc Miller, who served as a reservist in the Canadian Armed Forces in the 1990s, told reporters at the Liberal cabinet retreat in Quebec City on Friday that Canadians made “great sacrifices” in Afghanistan. (CANADIAN PRESS FILES)
Some are pushing back
Carney spoke of Canada as “an example to a world at sea” as he crafted a potential template for other world leaders navigating a new era.
“We can show that another way is possible, that the arc of history isn’t destined to be warped toward authoritarianism and exclusion,” he said in a speech before a cabinet retreat in Quebec City.
Trump seemingly ignored that the only time Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty, which requires all member countries to help another member under threat, was invoked was after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.
Referring to non-U.S. troops, Trump told Fox Business Network, “You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that, and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”
This prompted Canadian Liberal cabinet ministers and former Armed Forces members to defend the sacrifices Canadian soldiers made in Afghanistan.
Culture Minister Marc Miller, who served as a reservist in the Canadian Armed Forces in the 1990s, told reporters at the Liberal cabinet retreat in Quebec City on Friday that Canadians made “great sacrifices” in Afghanistan and everyone knows Trump’s comments are “false.”
Some 40,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces were deployed to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. Veterans Affairs Canada says 158 troops were killed as part of the multilateral operation.
In the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer blasted Trump on Friday for “insulting and frankly appalling” comments in which he expressed doubt that NATO would support the U.S. if requested.
Starmer, noting the 457 British personnel who died and those with life-long injuries, said he will “never forget their courage, their bravery and the sacrifice they made for their country.”
Denmark, which Trump has belittled as “ungrateful” for U.S. protection during the Second World War, had the highest per capita death toll among coalition forces in Afghanistan.
His tactics have raised fears that Trump is imposing long-term damage on the U.S. standing in the world and encouraging countries to rethink their alliances and deepen their ties with China. Carney already travelled there earlier this month to meet with President Xi Jinping.
“China’s leadership watched an American president fight with allies, insult world leaders, and engage in bizarre antics, and thought to themselves — this is nothing but good for us,” Jake Sullivan, former President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, said in an email.
The administration is showing no sign of backing down. The Pentagon released a defense strategy late Friday telling allies to handle their own security.
— with files by Associated Press writer Steven Sloan, The Canadian Press and CKOM News
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