President-elect Donald Trump is trolling Canada’s prime minister again—but it’s no longer clear that Justin Trudeau is in on the joke, if he ever was to begin with. “It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada,” Trump wrote, in a late-night Monday post to Truth Social. “I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all!”
Trump’s post echoed comments he first made at a late November dinner with Trudeau and appeared to respond to the PM’s own escalating rhetoric around trade and tariffs. Trump has threatened to slap a 25% import tax on Canadian and Mexican goods coming into the US. During an event in Halifax on Monday, Trudeau suggested that Canada would respond to such a tax with new tariffs of its own, as it did in 2018. He also warned that tariffs on Canadian goods would dramatically raise the price Americans pay for essentials like natural gas, oil and electricity. “Trump got elected on a commitment to make life better and more affordable for Americans,” Trudeau said, “and I think people south of the border are beginning to wake up to the real reality that tariffs on everything from Canada would make life a lot more expensive.”
This is not the turn that Canadians hoped their trade conversations with Trump would take. Trudeau and several other dignitaries flew to Mar-a-Lago in late November for a private dinner with the president-elect, where Trump first joked about Canada becoming the 51st US state. The Canadian delegation appeared to take that jest in stride, telling reporters that they understood Trump was “teasing” and that they believed they had convinced Trump not to lump Canada and Mexico together for trade policy purposes. But in a Sunday appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Trump doubled down on that approach: “I’m a big believer in tariffs,” he said. “We’re subsidizing Mexico and we’re subsidizing Canada.”
Last week, Trudeau met with Canadian opposition leaders to discuss US relations in light of Trump’s threats. The country is “still looking at the right ways to respond,” Trudeau said yesterday, but suggested it will answer as it “did eight years ago”—when Trump imposed tariffs on some Canadian products during his first administration. At the time, Canada aimed retaliatory tariffs at US industries in politically sensitive areas such as Wisconsin, the home state of then House Speaker Paul Ryan. If the Canadians try that again, Trudeau may get the last laugh. “We put tariffs on bourbon and Harley-Davidsons and playing cards and Heinz ketchup and cherries and a number of other things that were very carefully targeted,” Trudeau said Monday, “because they were politically impactful to the president’s party and colleagues.”
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