Donald Trump is a bully. Even his legions of supporters will concede this fact. Indeed, they view his pugnaciousness as part of his charm.
Canadian premier Justin Trudeau is a sniveling weakling, a boy elected to do a man’s job. He’s a former drama teacher and ski instructor and he’s not all that bright. He’s allowed Jew hatred to soar in Canada, and history shows that rampant antisemitism never has good outcomes for anyone. Despite serving as Canada’s leader for nearly a decade, I’d be surprised if any prestigious university would consider it an honor to appoint Trudeau to their faculty.
Weeks ago, Trudeau made a pilgrimage to Mar-A-Lago to meet with Trump. A photo was taken of him sitting next to the president looking like a deer in the headlights that sparked considerable derision among Canadians who appreciate and are fed up with Trudeau’s incompetence. A common trait among bullies is their innate ability to sniff out a weakling, and Trump’s olfactory senses are particularly keen. No doubt when Trump was seated next to Trudeau, the heavily perfumed smell of Eau de Trudeau Toilette overwhelmed him.
BFF trading partner
Trump’s proposed tariffs on Canada weren’t derived from a well-studied analysis about America’s trading relationship with its northern neighbor but rather were sparked by a perceived easy opportunity for some roadkill. In fact, according to Trudeau’s finance ministry, Canada is the top customer for U.S. exports, buying more U.S. goods than China, Japan, France and the United Kingdom combined. Canada is the largest export market for 36 states and is among the top three for 46 states, with 43 states exporting over $1 billion to Canada every year.
As well, Canada is a critical supplier of goods and services integral to the U.S. economy.
Underscoring how poorly thought-out Trump’s tariffs on Canada are, he’s already blinked twice by first offering a 30-day extension before they took effect and then offering another 30-day extension for automotive companies to rejigger their supply chains. A carefully considered plan wouldn’t have to be repeatedly revised.
Canadians should recognize Trump’s backpedaling and they should be angered that Trump has disrespected their sovereignty by suggesting they’d be better off becoming the 51st state. Elon Musk, who is Canadian and benefited from a quality government financed education, reportedly derided Canada as “not a real country.” China’s leader Xi Jinping had Musk sized up correctly when he dismissed the entrepreneur as a “technology utopian with no political allegiance to any country.”
Trudeau’s cabinet weaklings
Weak leaders surround themselves with other weaklings. Dominic LeBlanc, Trudeau’s Minister of Finance and Intergovernmental Affairs, reaffirms this point. LeBlanc’s statement about Canada’s retaliatory tariffs signaled fear and was laced with victimhood words such as “unjustified,” “unwarranted,” “unreasonable” and “unfair.”
Sorry, Monsieur LeBlanc, life is unfair. It was unfair when your predecessor, Chrystia Freeland, froze the bank accounts of people linked to the truckers’ protests during the pandemic, among the many reasons I have no sympathy for you or your Trudeau cabinet colleagues. You folks even make Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer look competent, and I consider Michigan’s leaders the gold standard of U.S. government ineptitude.
Seemingly unknown to Trudeau and LeBlanc, Canada could cause great harm to GM and Ford, which in turn would cause great harm to America. Canada could even leverage Trump’s tariffs threats to accelerate its green energy ambitions, which call for the elimination of gas engine vehicles by 2035. Many Canadians support these ambitions because electric vehicle adoption is considerably higher in Canada than the U.S.
Leading brands
In 2024, GM was Canada’s industry leader for the second consecutive year, capturing 15.4 percent of the market—its highest share since 2010—with 294,315 vehicles sold and an 11.9 percent sales increase. Cadillac and GMC each had their best sales year ever.
GM’s Canadian sales represented nearly 10% of the company’s combined U.S. and Canadian sales.
Ford ranked second in Canada, selling 279,221 new vehicles nationwide in 2024, a 16.1 percent increase over the year ago period. Ford’s F-150 pickup and its Super Duty siblings have been the best-selling trucks in Canada for 59 consecutive years, as well as the overall best-selling vehicles for the past 15 years.
Canada is even more critical to GM and Ford for their faltering electric vehicle businesses. Canada accounted for 20% of GM’s combined U.S. and Canadian EV sales last year, driven by the comparatively affordable Chevy EV Equinox and Chevy EV Blazer. Ford’s Mustang Mach-E was the 6th best-selling EV in Canada, and the electrified version of Ford’s F-150 was the 10th best-selling electric vehicle.
GM’s most popular EVs in Canada are manufactured in Mexico, where Ford proudly assembles its electric Mustang. Adding insult to injury, GM opted to swap out U.S. and Canadian parts in the 2025 models of the EV Equinox and EV Blazer in favor of Mexican-made parts. The 2025 electric Equinox and Blazer models have only 12% parts that were manufactured in the U.S. and Canada, compared with 62% percent of the 2024 models. The Canadian and U.S. automotive industries became so intertwined in the 1990s that parts manufactured in either country were labeled as American-made, so it’s not known how many Canadian-made parts GM replaced with Mexican-made alternatives.
Given that most GM and Ford vehicles sold in Canada are exported from the U.S. and Mexico, imagine the carnage if Canada were to slap costly tariffs on the automakers’ vehicles, particularly their EVs.
A one-two punch
Another powerful blow Canada could inflict on GM and Ford is removing the 100% tariffs the country imposed on China-made electric vehicles in solidarity with U.S. efforts to protect the U.S. automakers.
By all accounts, China’s EVs are better made and technologically superior to GM and Ford vehicles and cost considerably less. I’m certain China would provide Canada with all sorts of benefits to offset Trump’s tariffs in exchange for an opportunity to sell their EVs in Canada.
Consider this: The Xiaomi SU7, a China-made EV that Ford CEO Jim Farley hailed as “fantastic,” retails for about $30,000 or $42,000 CAD.
The base price for an EV Chevy Equinox in Canada is $48,333 CAD, and that’s a bare bones vehicle. The base price for Ford’s electric Mustang in Canada is $66,835 CAD. How many EVs would you expect GM and Ford to sell in Canada if Canadians could buy a Xiaomi SU7 or a less expensive China-made BYD, whose cheapest $9,500 Seagull Hatchback ($13,582,53 CAD) even comes with advanced driver-assisted system (ADAS) software as standard.
GM, Ford, and Tesla hope to soak their customers with thousands of dollars in subscription costs for ADAS software.
Speaking of Tesla, former deputy prime minister Freeland, who is running to succeed Trudeau, and some other Canadians want to impose 100% tariffs on Tesla vehicles to spite Elon Musk for his support of Trump. A more thoughtful policy would be to impose 100% tariffs on U.S.-made Tesla vehicles but remove tariffs on Tesla vehicles manufactured in China.
That possibly might benefit Musk overall, as he was previously hoping to export vehicles to Canada from China, but the policy could result in Musk laying off workers at his California and Texas plants. That would certainly be a blow to Trump’s efforts to bolster U.S. manufacturing jobs.
There is no doubt other creative measures Canada could take to retaliate against Trump. Richard Gold, director of McGill University’s Centre for Intellectual Property Policy, proposes that Canada take steps that could effectively suspend patent rights in Canada held by U.S.-controlled companies. Gold told Alan Freeman, a former Canadian correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, that the Canadian government can declare an emergency and seek a non-exclusive, limited license for the use of a patent without any negotiation and with the patent commissioner fixing the royalty.
Canada might also consider incentives to retain and attract medical, technology, and other professionals, given that the University of Toronto is ranked as the 17th best university in the world and is a leader in many medical specialties, and ranked 12th in space science.
Ontario’s tough leader
Then there’s Ontario’s Doug Ford, who was re-elected last week to a third term running on a platform that he was best suited to take on Trump. The Ford government has banned U.S. companies from bidding on Ontario government procurement, which is worth about $30 billion annually.
“Donald Trump thinks he can break us,” Ford told supporters gathered in Toronto to celebrate his victory. “Make no mistake: Canada won’t start a fight with the U.S., but you better believe we’re ready to win one,” he added.
Ford strikes me as someone who understands, or will soon figure out, that USMCA, the free-trade agreement President Trump signed with Canada and Mexico during his first term, is no longer good for Canada given that it incentivized GM and Ford to build more vehicles in Mexico at Canada’s expense.
The U.S. corporate media can’t cover Trump fairly and refuses to give him credit from some impressive accomplishments in short order, including securing the U.S. border, returning criminals to their home countries, and putting an end to wokeism. Democrats displaying paddles during Trump’s State of the Union was childish and was a Trudeauesque display of weakness. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow calling Trump “disgusting” for featuring a boy fighting cancer is an example why Americans so detest the corporate media and pay no attention to their warnings.
The sad truth is that Trump risks losing bigly the trade war he started with Canada. He could have easily prevented GM and Ford from moving more manufacturing operations to Mexico and possibly repatriating some of their factory operations by imposing a smaller tariff on Mexican-made vehicles and eliminating the tax credit on electric vehicles manufactured in Mexico. For good measure, Trump could have retained the tax incentive only for electric vehicles manufactured in America, thereby rewarding Toyota, Honda, and VW for their superior U.S. patriotism.
Instead, Trump started a trade war with Canada, one whose success is entirely dependent on Canadians choosing to elect another loser to succeed the one currently leading their country.