The trade war between the US and Canada erupted into an extraordinary exchange of insults and threats between President Donald Trump and Doug Ford, the leader of Ontario.
On Saturday, the premier likened Trump to a schoolyard bully who’d steal your lunch money and your hat, and said Canada should be ready to use electricity and critical minerals that the US needs as leverage. That prompted Prime Minister Mark Carney to announce hours later that Canada will impose counter-tariffs. He was backed strongly by Ford, whose province is on the front line of Trump’s tariffs as Canada’s auto and steel manufacturing heartland. Ford was in the middle of a radio interview, and the host read out the president’s entire post. “Your own people, President Trump, don’t even like you. And they’re going to speak loud and clear when it comes to the midterms.”
The White House put tariffs of 50% on some Canadian goods Saturday after trade talks collapsed. Then, on Monday, Trump threatened on social media to double tariffs on Canadian autos to 50% to punish Carney’s decision to retaliate.
“He can kiss my a– as far as I’m concerned,” the Ontario premier said immediately. The US president also called Ford the “Flunky” of “Governor” Carney, a jibe he returns to when relations sour, alongside saying Canada should be the 51st US state. “I’m not going to take any advice off a guy that’s the king of bankruptcies,” Ford said.
Then, last October, Ford’s government ran TV commercials in the US using an address of former President Ronald Reagan speaking out against tariffs. That led Trump to terminate trade talks with Canada.
Negotiations over one of the world’s biggest trading relationships went quiet for months, but Ford defended it as the “best ad that’s ever been run.”
