Donald Trump’s latest broadside at Canada was theatrical and absurd even by his own standards. In a Truth Social post this weekend, the US President threatened to slap “a 100 % tariff against all Canadian goods and products coming into the U.S.A.” if Ottawa “makes a deal with China”. He warned that “China will eat Canada alive, completely devour it, including the destruction of their businesses, social fabric, and general way of life”. He even called Prime Minister Mark Carney “Governor Carney”, deploying a jab he previously reserved for Justin Trudeau and alluding to his unfulfilled fantasy of Canada becoming America’s 51st state.

It’s tempting to treat this as just another tantrum, and in practical terms it probably is. A tariff of this magnitude would practically collapse the whole North American economy into recession. Besides crushing Canadian exporters in metal, machinery and agricultural sectors, it would also boomerang back onto US consumers and industries which depend on cross-border supply chains. Among the victims would be Midwestern states which rely on discounted Canadian gas from across the border, as well as farm states which use abundant Canadian fertiliser.

Given how self-defeating such a move would be, it’s clear that the threat is less a product of economic strategy and more an expression of the US President’s erratic whims. He is now seemingly latching on to Canada after last week’s Greenland fixation waned.

Recall how inconsistent Trump’s responses have been toward Canada’s moves to reduce dependence on Washington. He initially boasted that the US needed nothing from Canada and could forgo doing business with it altogether, claiming the USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement) was irrelevant. Then, just days ago, he was on record approving of Carney’s China engagement, saying “that’s what he should be doing” and that it was “a good thing for him to sign a trade deal”. Trump, for his part, has regularly made deals with China, is due to make another one in April, and has been relatively lenient on Chinese companies such as TikTok. This weekend, the rhetoric shifted again from grudging assent to blistering threat.

The pivot has clearly followed Carney’s Davos speech last week, where the Canadian Prime Minister argued that the US-led “rules-based order” had fractured, and that middle powers must band together to avoid coercion from larger states. In the face of international rave reviews of the address, Trump’s outburst yesterday cannot be read as anything other than an attempt to reassert dominance after being publicly upstaged. History suggests he will eventually back down, just as he walked back tariff threats against Europe tied to his Greenland gambit, as well as previous threats against Canada.

But that doesn’t mean the rhetoric won’t have real effects. Coupled with recent comments from figures such as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent endorsing Alberta separatism, this moment reinforces the psychological terror campaign against Canada which really began in the final months of the Trudeau era, when Trump initiated his trade war and annexation threats. The aim of this particular phase is to sow uncertainty, discredit Carney’s pivot, and pressure Ottawa to retreat from its emergent multipolar strategy.

Yet even when Trump eventually TACOs, the damage will have already been done: the fracture with Ottawa will become permanent, perceptions in the West that Washington’s word is not its bond will harden, and the political winds will blow ever more clearly toward radical economic diversification. Regardless, China will still have the deal it wanted: tariff relief on Canadian products and a path toward its electric vehicles in North America. If there was a conspiracy to hasten a Chinese Century, it’s not coming from Ottawa but from Washington.

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Michael Cuenco is a writer on policy and politics. He is Senior Editor at American Affairs.

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