NewsMacroTrump Fires Back at Canada After Carney Suspends Trade Talks, Accuses U.S. of Last-Minute 'Power Play'

Trump Fires Back at Canada After Carney Suspends Trade Talks, Accuses U.S. of Last-Minute 'Power Play'

Author: Fox Business Markets·

Key Takeaways

  • Trump said Canada wants the advantages of being a U.S. state without actually becoming one.
  • Carney suspended the trade talks and recalled Canada’s negotiating team after the U.S. tariffs took effect.
  • Canada said it will respond with matching tariffs on multiple sectors, including steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics.
  • U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said no further talks with Canada are currently scheduled.
  • The dispute comes amid a trade relationship between the two countries that totals close to $1 trillion in goods and services each year.
Trump Fires Back at Canada After Carney Suspends Trade Talks, Accuses U.S. of Last-Minute 'Power Play'

President Donald Trump lashed out at Canada early Sunday in his first public comments since trade negotiations between the two countries collapsed, accusing Ottawa of wanting "the benefits of being a State, without being one."

"Canada wants the benefits of being a State, without being one!!!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.

"They have also charged our great farmers, for many years, massive amounts of Tariffs," he added. "No more!!!"

The comments came a day after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney suspended negotiations with the United States and ordered Canada's trade team back to Ottawa, as Trump's 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian imports took effect early Saturday. Trump has floated the prospect of Canada joining the United States as the 51st state repeatedly since late 2024, suggestions that have been rebuffed by leaders across Canada's political spectrum.

Canada, for its part, has vowed to retaliate. Carney said Friday that Ottawa plans to match the U.S. tariffs "dollar for dollar," with the levies targeting multiple sectors, including steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics. Those duties are set to take effect the Tuesday after Labor Day, Sept. 8. The exchange lands in one of the world's largest bilateral trading relationships, with the two countries trading close to $1 trillion in goods and services a year, much of it flowing under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the 2020 pact Trump negotiated in his first term to replace NAFTA.

On Saturday, the prime minister accused Washington of making a last-minute "power play," saying the United States sought to restrict Canada's ability to negotiate trade agreements with other countries.

"It's a power play," Carney said. "It becomes a question of sovereignty."

According to Carney, the trade talks broke down after the U.S. introduced new demands involving Canada's other trading relationships, its auto sector, and protections for Canadian culture and the French language. Both areas touch long-standing Canadian policy: Ottawa has insisted on cultural exemptions in its trade agreements since the NAFTA era, a carve-out carried into the USMCA, while Canadian auto plants are tightly integrated with U.S. factories, with parts and unfinished vehicles routinely crossing the border several times during assembly.

"In short, they asked too much, and they offered too little," Carney said.

The Trump administration has disputed Carney's version of events, arguing that Canada walked away from terms the two countries had already agreed to.

"Our interest is in protecting American workers and protecting American supply chains. We've been offering to bring the Canadians along on that path, really to cut the tariffs on them on steel, on autos, even lumber, things that are sensitive for them," U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Saturday on "Fox & Friends Weekend."

"And they've always had the best deal, and they still would have an even better deal, but they didn't want that," he continued.

Greer said no additional trade negotiations with Canada have been scheduled. The rupture is at least the second this summer: in late June, Trump announced he was calling off the talks over Canada's digital services tax, a standoff that ended days later when Ottawa rescinded the levy and bargaining resumed.

FOX Business' Brittany Miller and Fox News Digital's Madison Colombo contributed to this report.