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As Democrats prepare to force a vote in the US House this week on Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, the president posted a lengthy diatribe on his social media platform in which he threatened to block a bridge connecting the US and Canada and made a bizarre false claim that increased trade between Canada and China would include a ban on Canadians playing ice hockey.
Trump began his latest screed against the US’s second-largest trading partner by claiming that “everyone knows, the Country of Canada has treated the United States very unfairly for decades”.
The president also threatened to block the scheduled opening of the $4.6bn Gordie Howe International Bridge, connecting Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan, built by a binational partnership that won approval during the Obama administration but began construction in 2018, when Trump was president.
“I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve,” Trump wrote on Monday.
Trump blamed his predecessor Barack Obama for “stupidly” approving the bridge project, but made no mention of the fact that he had endorsed it himself in 2017 in a joint statement with Canada’s then prime minister, Justin Trudeau. “In particular, we look forward to the expeditious completion of the Gordie Howe international bridge, which will serve as a vital economic link between our two countries,” Trump and Trudeau said.
In 2012, Michigan’s then governor Rick Snyder accepted a Canadian government offer to fund most of the new bridge’s costs, and took the unusual step of using executive authority to bypass the legislature. Construction began in 2018 and the bridge is nearing completion. The US Homeland Security Department on 30 January published a rule declaring the bridge as an official port of entry.
The Canadian embassy in Washington, the office of Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and the bridge authority did not immediately comment.
The cause of Trump’s rage appears to be a closer trading relationship with China negotiated by the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, after Trump raised tariffs on Canadian imports. “China … will eat Canada alive,” Trump wrote.
To illustrate his point, Trump then added a particularly wild claim with no factual basis at all: “The first thing China will do is terminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada, and permanently eliminate The Stanley Cup.”
Trump’s bizarre claim that China would force Canada to give up its national pastime as part of a trade deal stunned many observers when they saw it in black and white on Monday, but Canadians have heard it before.
“Canada’s not doing well, they’re doing very poorly,” Trump said last month at the opening of his wife’s documentary about herself, in comments broadcast by Canada’s CTV. “You can’t look at China as the answer,” Trump added.
Senator Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, said “canceling this project will have serious repercussions. Higher costs for Michigan businesses, less secure supply chains, and ultimately, fewer jobs.”
She added Trump is “punishing Michiganders for a trade war he started. The only reason Canada is on the verge of a trade deal with China is because President Trump has kicked them in the teeth for a year.”
Trump has made a number of threats against Canada in his second term and drastically hike tariffs on the US northern neighbor. Last month, he said he would impose a 100% tariff on Canada if it follows through on a trade deal with China.
