Trump threatens Canada with 100% tariffs amid feud over China ties
Washington: U.S. President Donald Trump insulted Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on Canada amid an escalating row over Carney’s efforts to expand trade with China and expand his country’s security partnerships.
The acrimonious relationship between Trump and his northern neighbor has deteriorated further after two weeks in which Carney visited Beijing and mutually agreed to cut tariffs, heralded a “new world order” and then engaged in bitter negotiations with Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The trade deal, which Carney framed as a “strategic partnership” with Beijing, would open Canada to 49,000 Chinese-made electric vehicles at a low 6.1 per cent tariff, while China would reduce tariffs on Canadian canola seed to about 15 per cent.
Carney and Chinese President Xi Jinping said they want to increase two-way investment and trade in clean and conventional energy, technology, agri-food, wood products and other sectors.
In a social media post on Saturday morning (Sunday AEDT), Trump disparaged Carney as the “governor” of Canada; It was an insult he had previously applied only to Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, who threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on Canadian products coming into the United States.
“If Governor Carney thinks he is going to turn Canada into a ‘Dropport Port’ for China to ship goods and products to the United States, he is sorely mistaken,” Trump said.
“China will eat Canada alive, completely destroying it, including the destruction of its jobs, social fabric, and general way of life. If Canada makes a deal with China, there will be an immediate 100% tariff on all Canadian goods and products coming into the United States.”
He later added: “The last thing the world needs is for China to take over Canada. That’s not going to happen, it’s not even going to come close to happening! Thank you for your interest in this.”
The threat is a complete departure from Trump’s stance before Davos, a week ago when he said Carney was doing his job by striking a trade deal with Beijing. “If you can make a deal with China, you should do it,” Trump told reporters at the time.
The U.S. president is also pursuing his own trade deal with China, which he hopes to advance or finalize during a planned visit to Beijing in April.
Trump’s latest tariff threats have been particularly volatile. He declared tariffs on his European allies to repel attempts to annex Greenland, then withdrew them days later in Davos and withdrew his threats to seize Danish territory by force.
On January 12, he pledged to “effectively immediately” impose 25 percent tariffs on any country still doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which includes China, but these have not yet been implemented.
At Davos, Carney declared that the rules-based international order dominated for decades by the United States was weakening and called on mid-sized powers such as Canada to forge new partnerships with like-minded countries.
Without naming Trump, Carney warned that hegemonic powers cannot apply economic pressure indefinitely. “Allies will diversify to protect against uncertainty. They will buy insurance, increase options to rebuild their sovereignty,” he said.
Speaking the next day, Trump said Canada should be “grateful” to the United States because it had gotten so many “freebies.”
“But they’re not,” he said. “I watched your prime minister yesterday, he wasn’t very grateful… Canada is alive because of the USA. Remember that next time you make a statement, Mark.”
Carney later said Trump was wrong, saying Canada “thrives because we’re Canadians.”
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political correspondent in Canberra.Connect with: excitement or email.
