President Donald Trump has spent the past 24 hours attacking Canada and Canadian leaders. But his bluster doesn't tell the whole story.
On Monday, Trump posted on Truth Social in all-caps, “We don't need Canada, they need us!”
“Build in the U.S. and there are zero tariffs," Trump wrote. "Canada will be treated like a State no longer! On trade, and in other ways, also, they are among the worst nations in the world to deal with."
CNN's Daniel Dale on Tuesday cited a Trump tele-rally in which the president confessed that he actually needs Canada's cheap aluminum.
“You know, selfishly, we need aluminum in this country. We don't have it. We get it all from Canada, for the most part, and we need it badly," Trump said, according to Dale.
Roughly half of all aluminum comes from imports into the U.S., the Council on Foreign Relations said in a 2025 report after Trump raised tariffs on the metal. Canada is traditionally the largest supplier of aluminum to the U.S. So, Trump's posturing with Canada has been slowly shrinking over the past 24 hours. In previous trade battles, Trump critics crafted the TACO abbreviation, which stands for "Trump Always Chickens Out."
Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff to Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) cited data from the United States Trade Representative about Ontario specifically. A whopping "40 percent of Canada’s population and about the same of its GDP. Many will roll their eyes at this, but Trump’s vanity and stupidity have a real-world cost to American workers and jobs."
Ironically, Trump's aluminum needs have become a huge issue in a red-state election. The unpopular gubernatorial candidate Trump endorsed in Oklahoma has agreed to fast-track an aluminum plant in the state, despite local governments fighting to block it over environmental concerns and how it could hurt family farms.
All the while, the company would be handed "hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and incentives from both the federal government and the state — a classic exercise in industrial policy," said a Washington Post op-ed.
Trump has claimed that the U.S. must build these plants due to a "national security concern." However, the vast majority of the aluminum that comes into the U.S. is from Canada, not China.
The Post's Editorial Board explained, "Trump disrupted that balance by imposing a 50 percent tariff on Canadian aluminum products last year in an effort to boost U.S. manufacturing. The war with Iran also increased the cost of the metal by disrupting the supply of aluminum products from U.S. allies in the Middle East."
