Ex-deputy PM exposes what Trump’s 'irrational' Canada attacks really mean

President Donald Trump meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in the White House on May 6, 2025 (Official White House Photo by Gabriel B Kotico/Flickr)

President Donald Trump's attempts to wage a trade war with Canada are "irrational," but, as a former deputy prime minister detailed in a New York Times piece, there is a deeper reason behind his attacks than just economics.

Despite Canada being among the country's closest allies for centuries, Trump has nonetheless been extremely antagonistic toward it since returning to the White House, frequently threatening it with tariffs and often suggesting that it should be annexed as a new state. Most recently, he leveled a new 50 percent tariff against Canada in response to its supposed "discrimination" against American imports, while also threatening additional sanctions over its recent rash of wildfires.

Chrystia Freeland previously served as Canada's deputy prime minister from 2019 to 2024 under Justin Trudeau. On Tuesday, she published an op-ed for the Times, in which she noted that blaming Canada for a laundry list of things, as Trump has done, "used to be such a fantastical idea that it was a joke," likening it to a famous bit from the long-running TV show, South Park. She also called the effort to start a trade war with Canada "truly absurd" for the U.S., given that the "trade relationship with its northern neighbor is very strong, and mutually beneficial."

"The Trump White House knows that, because commerce between the two countries is governed by a trade agreement negotiated during the first Trump administration and lauded by the president himself as 'the best trade deal ever,'" Freeland argued. "Even politicians who were lifelong critics of free trade and opponents of Mr. Trump’s backed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement."

Beneath the bluster, Freeland argued that Trump's attacks on Canada actually have "a clear purpose: to demonstrate who is dominant and who must submit."

"As a U.S. counterpart told me during the U.S.M.C.A. negotiations in 2018, we are 10 times bigger than you, so we should get our way 10 times more than you do," she continued. "The laughably flimsy, constantly changing justifications for the president’s tariffs are in fact part of the point. True power is being able to do whatever you like for whatever reason you like, or for no reason at all ... You don’t need to have attended meetings in the Oval Office or have a degree in international relations to see that this is what is going on. The president has been his usual, utterly transparent self."

She added later: "In other words, this isn’t about wine sales or how Canada manages its forests or reviving U.S. manufacturing. It’s about whether Canada is prepared to accept a profound change in its relationship with the United States. It’s about whether Canada is willing to go from being an ally and a partner, in a relationship governed by treaties and rules, to being a vassal, subject to Washington fiat — like the Venezuela of Delcy Rodríguez, only with snowdrifts and hockey."

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