With Donald Trump’s 25 percent tariff on Canada and Mexico set to take effect Tuesday, the top official in Ontario, Canada says he will ‘rip up’ a government contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink technology.
‘Ontario won’t do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy,’ the province’s Premier Doug Ford said in a statement Monday morning disavowing the $100 million contract.
He said he was banning contracts between the province and U.S. companies until ‘U.S. tariffs are removed.’
The move comes as Trump came out with more tough talk Sunday blasting Canada and blaming the country for drugs and migrants coming into the U.S. Musk, meanwhile, is helming Trump’s effort to eliminate the U.S. Agency for International Development, an agency authorized and appropriated by Congress that Trump says is being ‘run by radical left lunatics.’
‘It’s been a one way street. We subsidize Canada to the tune of about $200 billion a year,’ Trump said, overstating the U.S.-Canada trade deficit of $41 billion. ‘And for what? What do we get out of it? We don’t get anything out of it…Something is going to happen there. If they want to play the game, I don’t mind, we can play the game all they want.’
“Every year, the Ontario government and its agencies spend $30 billion on procurement, alongside our $200 billion plan to build Ontario,’ Ford posted on X, a platform owned by Musk.
‘U.S.-based businesses will now lose out on tens of billions of dollars in new revenues. They only have President [Donald] Trump to blame,’ he added.
‘We’re going one step further. We’ll be ripping up the province’s contract with Starlink. Ontario won’t do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy. Canada didn’t start this fight with the U.S., but you better believe we’re ready to win it.’
Trump spoke Monday to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, who has already announced Canada would hit back on $155 billion on U.S. products.
Trump hit Canada again in another Truth Social post Monday morning, then indicated the two would speak again.
‘Canada doesn’t even allow U.S. Banks to open or do business there. What’s that all about? Many such things, but it’s also a DRUG WAR, and hundreds of thousands of people have died in the U.S. from drugs pouring through the Borders of Mexico and Canada. Just spoke to Justin Trudeau. Will be speaking to him again at 3:00 P.M.’
The looming trade war was causing jitters on Wall Street, with the Dow down more than 400 points in early trading – the first since Trump signed orders to impose the tariffs.
Canada’s economy is dwarfed by that of the U.S., giving Trump leverage in any negotiations to try to avert the trade war. But the two economies also are closely linked through the supply chain, with auto parts going back and forth between Detroit and other U.S. plants and Ontario and other Canadian manufacturers.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum slapped back with her own retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. ‘I’ve instructed my economy minister to implement the plan B we’ve been working on, which includes tariff and non-tariff measures in defense of Mexico’s interests,’ she wrote Saturday.
Trump spent part of the weekend raging at the Wall Street Journal after the paper’s conservative editorial blasted what it called ‘The Dumbest Trade War in History.’
Trump hit back Sunday on Truth Social, writing: ‘The “Tariff Lobby,” headed by the Globalist, and always wrong, Wall Street Journal, is working hard to justify Countries like Canada, Mexico, China, and too many others to name, continue the decades long RIPOFF OF AMERICA, both with regard to TRADE, CRIME, AND POISONOUS DRUGS that are allowed to so freely flow into AMERICA.’
‘Will there be some pain? Yes, maybe (and maybe not!)’ Trump wrote Sunday morning in all-caps on his Truth Social media platform, defending his executive order.
‘But we will Make America Great Again, and it will all be worth the price that must be paid.’
Kevin Hassett, who chairs Trump’s Council of Economic Advisors, said Monday at the White House that it was ‘not a trade war, this is a drug war.’
‘The Canadians appear to have misunderstood the plain language of the executive order, and they’re interpreting it as a trade war. And I think that that’s probably consistent with the policies that we’ve seen from this failed government in the past, where they’d let their own drug problem get out of control, and instead of addressing the drug problem, they want to blame the US, and perhaps get some political benefit out of saying that Trump’s tried to create a trade war. Why would he do that with Canada in Mexico? This is 100% about drug war. It’s 100% about fentanyl,’ he said.
Trump said the tariffs are needed to ‘protect’ Americans from the ‘major threat of illegal aliens and deadly drugs.’
Trudeau says less than 1% of fentanyl that enters the U.S. comes from Canada.