Trump threatens to cut off trade with the EU if it partners with Canada

The president of the United States threatened Wednesday to impose “very serious tariffs” on Europe if the European Union’s plan to deepen ties with Canada comes to fruition. Donald Trump also did not rule out going as far as cutting off trade entirely, he said.

“If I think it’s at all a hostile act, I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe on many things,” he told reporters after landing en route to a rally in North Carolina. He added that “Canada has been a terrible trade partner.”

It was one of his trademark, casually delivered but potentially serious threats: he gave no details on how he would carry it out, nor where he would draw the line that would push him to escalate an already open trade war against both allies.

Trump’s statements came just hours after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Wednesday her intention to open the door to Canada so it could become the first “associate member of the European Union.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who is expected to address the EU Parliament on Thursday in a historic appearance, has said he seeks a “unique security and economic alliance” with the bloc amid renewed tariff and existential attacks from Trump, who has mused about turning the northern neighbor into the 51st state.

In February, Carney spoke at the Davos forum about “a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics [...] is submitted to no limits, no constraints.” He also argued that “the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states.”

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