Trump says last thing world needs is China to take over Canada, threatens 100% tariffs if trade deal completed

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to impose 100 per cent tariffs on Canada should its northern neighbour complete a trade deal with China.

100 per cent tariffs

The Financial Times reports that Trump first threatened Canada with a 100 per cent tariff on Jan. 24 via a post on the social media platform Truth Social.

Trump condescendly referring to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney as “governor”, a derogatory term meant to remind Carney that Trump has threatened to take over Canada on multiple occasions.

Trump said that if Carney thought “he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products in the United States, he is sorely mistaken.”

He predicted that “China will eat Canada alive”, and that it would destroy their businesses, social fabric, and general way of life; he said that Canada would be subject to 100 per cent tariffs against all goods and products imported into the U.S.

A few hours later, he took to social media again, saying that “the last thing the world needs is to have China take over Canada”.

He promised that such a thing was “NOT going to happen, or even come close to happening”.

You should do that

This is in stark contrast to Trump’s previous comments.

The BBC reports that Trump had commented that a potential trade deal between Canada and China was a “good thing”, and that “if you can get a deal with China, you should do that”.

Carney made an official four-day visit to China from Jan. 14 to 18, signalling a thawing in the economic relationship, where previously Canada, under Justin Trudeau, had marched in lockstep with the U.S. by chilling economic ties.

Amongst the several agreements, the most prominent was the reduction of tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles from 100 per cent to 6.1 per cent for up to 49,000 EVs.

Carney said that in order for Canada to build a competitive EV sector, it would “need to learn from innovative partners”, as quoted by Reuters.

In return, China agreed to begin lowering tariffs on several Canadian agricultural products.

Rupture

The Canadian-U.S. bilateral relationship, once amongst the strongest in the world, has taken several hits in the past year since Trump returned to power, with Trump even suggesting that he would make the country the U.S’s “51st state”.

Carney, for his part, said that Canada’s approach to the world was to take it “as it is, not as we wish it to be”.

He followed this up with a stinging critique of the U.S.-led world order at a speech at the 2026 World Economic Forum, calling on middle powers globally to work together to rebuild a world order that Carney characterised as “ruptured”, saying that the “old world order is not coming back, but we should not mourn it”.

Trump appears to have taken offence, calling out Carney and Canada as ungrateful in his own speech a day later.

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Top image via White House Gallery