US President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to impose a 100 per cent tariff on all Canadian goods coming into the country if Ottawa goes on to strike a trade deal with China.
Addressing Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney as governor, Trump said that China “will eat Canada alive” if the deal goes through.
“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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The Republican, who in the past has said that he wants Canada to be the 51st state of the US, said that he will impose a 100 per cent tariff on Ottawa if it makes a deal with Beijing.
“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! President DJT,” he added.
Mark Carney has said he expects China to cut tariffs on Canadian rapeseed, also known as canola, after meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping, in the first visit by a Canadian leader to Beijing in eight years. In tandem, he announced that Canada will allow 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into its market at a tariff rate of about 6%, removing a 100% surtax. China will also offer visa-free travel to Canadians.
Trump initially had said that agreement was what Carney “should be doing and it’s a good thing for him to sign a trade deal.”
The Canada-US tensions
Donald Trump’s threat came amid an escalating war of words with Mark Carney as the Republican president’s push to acquire Greenland strained the NATO alliance. Trump had commented while in Davos, Switzerland, this week that “Canada lives because of the United States.”
Soon after the deal with China was signed, the Canadian leader delivered a withering speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which he warned against coercion by great powers — an implicit denunciation of Trump’s leadership.
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.
