Confusion and frustration swept the country Saturday morning after news spread that President Donald Trump had threatened to cut trade with Canada over a cinnamon-flavored candy he wrongly suggested comes from Mexico.

Trump made the remark to a reporter in the Oval Office on Friday while attempting to explain how trade deficits work.

"We could do tremendous good for ourselves by just not trading with countries," Trump said. "We lose, with the European Union, $200 billion a year. If I didn't trade with them, we'd lose nothing."

The comment, shared on X by journalist account Acyn, was quickly met with a fact-check from readers.

"The trade deficit is not a debt, it does not represent losing money to the other country," the reader comment states. "It means more goods were imported from it than exported to it."

The fact-check cited a Stanford University Hoover Institution essay by David R. Henderson titled "Trade deficits aren't a problem."

"It's easiest to see that at the individual level," Henderson wrote. "My wife and I have about a $5,000 annual trade deficit with Safeway. We spend approximately $5,000 per year at Safeway and Safeway spends zero on my articles and speeches. More's the pity, as the British say, but that's the way it is."

The president, however, did not appear to grasp the concept.

"Just one swipe of the pen," he said. "We lose, with Mexico, $195 billion a year. If I don't trade with Mexico, they have nothing that we have to have. I mean, Hot Tamales, tomatoes, a couple of things. But basically they have nothing that we need."

Hot Tamales are made by Just Born, a company founded in 1923 in New York — Trump's home state — which has since relocated to Pennsylvania, according to its website. The company boasts that it produces "America's #1 Cinnamon flavored candy."

Beyond the candy comment, Trump said he would not cut trade with Mexico because he respects its president, but then quietly threatened to sever trade with Canada.

"Canada would be in a heap of trouble," Trump said. "I don't think they'd exist."

The threat carries weight because Canada is one of the United States' largest trading partners. The two countries, along with Mexico, are parties to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the trade pact that replaced NAFTA during Trump's first term and governs most North American commerce. Critics noted that severing trade with Canada would disrupt supply chains that have been deeply integrated across the border for decades, spanning autos, energy, and agriculture.

Critics reacted with astonishment.

"Hot tamales?" replied Ron Filipkowski. "WTF?"

The Intellectualists offered a blunt summary of the president's remarks: "Trump claims trading is bad."

"He's just stupid," X influencer RogerZenAF told his 37,000 followers. "Being a little dense or ditzy is normal, he's just plain f---ing dumb."

Randy Shulman, editor of the Washington, D.C. LGBTQ+ magazine Metro Weekly, put it simply: "He is the dumbest racist alive."