US President, Donald Trump, has threatened to slap a 100% tariff on Canadian goods if the country strikes a trade deal with China.
“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.,” Trump said on Truth Social.
It is unclear what deal Trump is referring to in his social media post. Last week, Canada’s Prime Minister Carney announced a “strategic partnership” with China, and agreed to reduce tariffs.
At the time, Trump called the move “a good thing”. But tensions between the US and Canada have grown in recent days, after Carney said in a speech in Davos that the US-led world order had been ruptured.
Carney also urged other “middle powers” to band together in the face of economic coercion by “greater powers”, though he did not mention Trump by name.
Trump responded to the remarks in his own speech the next day, saying: “Canada lives because of the United States.”
The US president also withdrew an invitation for Canada to join his new Board of Peace.
On Saturday, Trump said in his social media post that if 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”.
Canada’s US trade minister Dominic LeBlanc said in a statement, “There is no pursuit of a free trade deal with China.”
“What was achieved was resolution on several important tariff issues.”