U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose 100 per cent tariffs on all Canadian goods if Canada makes a trade deal with China.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday morning, Trump said 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.”
“China will eat Canada alive, completely devour it, including the destruction of their businesses, social fabric, and general way of life,” the American president wrote. “If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100% Tariff against all Canadian goods and products coming into the U.S.A. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
The Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-U.S trade relations.
Trump’s latest salvo comes just over a week after Prime Minister Mark Carney signed an agreement with Beijing to undo 100 per cent tariffs Canada slapped on Chinese electric vehicles in 2024, which aligned with U.S. policy at the time. In turn, China agreed to reduce tariffs on Canadian canola, seafood and other products.
It wasn’t clear what “deal” Trump was referring to in his post, as it could concern last week’s agreement, or a more comprehensive, future trade deal between Ottawa and Beijing.
China has already acted on the arrangement Carney recently struck, moving quickly to import Canadian canola and beef.
Federal Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald told reporters on Tuesday that a Chinese importer has ordered 60,000 metric tonnes of canola seed, and he’s aware of a company shipping its first load of Canadian beef to China next week.
The latest threat from Trump marks a drastic pivot from his initial reaction to Canada’s warming relations with China.
When asked by reporters at the White House about the EV deal, Trump praised Carney last Friday. “That’s what he should be doing. It’s a good thing for him to sign a trade deal. If you can get a deal with China, you should do that,” Trump said at the time.
In recent weeks, Carney has been busy travelling to different parts of the globe to secure deals to diversify Canada’s trading partners as the U.S. becomes less reliable.
At the top of his agenda was improving an icy relationship with China.
The Carney government notified Trump that it was parting ways with his administration to lower Canadian tariffs against Chinese EVs and win tariff relief from Beijing on Canadian canola and seafood products, ensuring Washington was kept in the loop.
The deal Canada reached with China will allow 49,000 Chinese EVs to be imported into Canada this year at a tariff rate of 6.1 per cent.
After his Beijing visit, the first by a prime minister since 2017, Carney flew to Davos, Switzerland, to address the global elite at the World Economic Forum in a hard-hitting speech that urged middle powers to form strategic new alliances to protect their interests, citizens and values.
“The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it,” Carney said in his Tuesday address.
The “rupture” in the fabric of institutions and laws requires nations to be honest “about the world as it is,” the prime minister continued as he ripped into unnamed “great powers” that have abandoned the postwar system of free trade rules and other laws and institutions in an effort to claim large parts of the globe for themselves.
The next day Trump showed his displeasure with Carney’s speech, emphasizing that Canada relies heavily on the U.S. economy.
“Canada lives because of the United States,” Trump said during his Wednesday address at the World Economic Forum. “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”
More to come. With files from The Canadian Press.
