OTTAWA—U.S President Donald Trump took his tariff threats and “51st state” taunts against Canada to a global audience in Davos, saying America doesn’t need “anything” Canada has to offer.
With his return to the White House, Trump said “we began the golden age of America” — a boast that led Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to retort immediately.
“Donald Trump has announced that he wants ‘a golden age’ for the American economy. That means they’re going to need more energy, more minerals, more steel and aluminum, more lumber, more concrete, more of the things that Canada is already sending them as a reliable and trustworthy partner,” Trudeau said Thursday ahead of a national caucus meeting.
But if Trump turns his back on Canada and slaps his promised 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods, whether it is Feb. 1 as the president has mused, or April 1 as set out in an executive order, or Feb. 14 “as a Valentine’s Day present,” Trudeau replied, “it would be a mistake” and said Ottawa will hit back and ramp up penalties on America.
“Canada will have a strong, robust response because we don’t want this, but we will respond, if necessary. And,” he said, “prices for American consumers on just about everything will go up, and we don’t think he wants that.”
Canada’s counter-measures would be applied “gradually with one goal: not to figure out how to manage these tariffs and live with them over the long term, but to figure out how to get them removed as quickly as possible and on that, everything is on the table.”
It’s the testiest reply Trudeau has offered to date to Trump’s taunts.
Trump, in the Davos speech and a series of digressive answers to questions posed by global billionaires and bankers meeting at the Swiss resort, criticized most of America’s allies: NATO countries which he said should jack up defence spending to hit a new target of five per cent of their economies; the European Union which Trump complained demands easy access to American markets but targets American companies with taxes and tariffs, and Mexico and Canada.
“One thing we’re going to be demanding is we’re going to be demanding respect from other nations,” Trump said, turning immediately to “Canada.”
Trump said the U.S. has “a tremendous deficit with Canada.” (The trade imbalance, outside of Canada’s energy exports, is in America’s favour, Ottawa says.)
The president said tariffs can be avoided if the two countries merge, quoting himself.
“I say, ‘You can always become a state, and if you’re a state, we won’t have a deficit. We won’t have to tariff you,’” he told the audience. “But Canada has been very tough to deal with over the years, and it’s not fair that we should have a $200-billion or $250-billion deficit.”
(Ottawa disputes Trump’s numbers, saying that in 2023, the U.S. merchandise trade deficit with Canada was $64.3 billion U.S. and entirely driven by energy products. If you exclude energy, the U.S. has had a merchandise trade surplus since 2007, standing at $28.6 billion U.S. in 2023.)
But Trump said America should put tariffs on or ditch altogether any imports from Canada, and go it alone.
“We don’t need them to make our cars, and they make a lot of them,” he said. “We don’t need their lumber because we have our own forests, et cetera, et cetera. We don’t need their oil and gas. We have more than anybody.”
At the outset of his speech, Trump was blunt about his goal: to drastically cut corporate taxes, drive up America’s energy production, and attract global investment to the U.S.
“But if you don’t make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then, very simply, you will have to pay a tariff — differing amounts, but a tariff — which will direct hundreds of billions of dollars and even trillions of dollars into our treasury to strengthen our economy and pay down debt.”
Hours later, speaking from the Oval Office to reporters, Trump repeated his intention to levy 25 per cent tariffs on Canada and Mexico on Feb. 1, and 10 per cent tariffs on Chinese imports.
When asked why he was going softer on China, Trump replied “they’ve already started at a higher base.”
“China is already paying a lot of tariffs because of me, and when you add them up, I would say, you know, they’re paying a lot. They paid hundreds of billions of dollars.” He said China will face tariffs because it is also a major shipper of fentanyl to the U.S. with “most of it” coming through Mexico.
The Trudeau government insists that the goal is still to prevent tariffs.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly spoke with Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday evening and made the case that tariffs will hurt American businesses and consumers, she told reporters, and she plans to go to Washington again next week to meet Rubio in person.
Trudeau shrugged off signs of divisions in the ranks of premiers, with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith opposing any intention by Ottawa to restrict or slap export tariffs on Alberta oil to the U.S. and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe saying he opposes export tariffs on any Canadian products, noting Saskatchewan is a key producer of energy, uranium, potash and grains.
Trudeau said Wednesday that Smith is “doing her job of defending Alberta, but we want to defend all Canadians.”
