Donald Trump has said Canada should be “grateful” for the “freebies” it gets from the US, a day after its prime minister, Mark Carney, warned the world was undergoing a geopolitical “rupture”.
Speaking those attending the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Switzerland, the US president singled out Carney’s speech that was sharply critical of US foreign policy.
“Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way. They should be grateful, also, but they’re not. I watched your prime minister yesterday. He wasn’t so grateful,” Trump told the audience. “Canada lives by the United States. Remember that, Mark, next time you make your statements.”
In the rambling and peevish speech, Trump repeated his intention to seize control of Greenland in order to build his proposed Golden Dome missile defence system, which Canada is hoping to join. Trump said the Golden Dome was “going to be defending Canada”.
The prime minister’s office said it had no plans to comment on Trump’s remarks, adding that there were no plans for the two leaders to meet.
Trump’s jab at Carney came a day after a closely watched speech in which the prime minister lamented the erosion of international institutions and called for new global to combat the rise of “hegemons” upending global norms.
“Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu. Great powers can afford to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity, the leverage to dictate terms,” said Carney. “Middle powers do not.”
Without naming Trump, Carney said an “old order” of alliances and rules-based order was not returning. “We should not mourn it,” he said. “Nostalgia is not a strategy.”
Trump has used his second term to extract concessions from allied nations when negotiating trade deals and has increasingly cast doubt on the value Canada holds for their relationship.
Touring a Michigan car plant in mid-January, Trump said his country “didn’t need” products from Canada, adding that the USMCA free trade deal between the two countries and Mexico – which he helped renegotiate in his first term – was “irrelevant” to him.
Increasingly, Canada is also looking for new trading pacts to decrease its reliance on the US.
“When you talk about the Americans, they’ll always remain important to Canada. Our geography is not going to change,” Canada’s international trade minister, Maninder Sidhu, told reporters from Davos. “But you look at who else we want to deal with: China is our second-largest trading partner. India is going to be the third-largest economy. We’re looking across the world for areas of opportunity.”
Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, who oversees the country’s largest provincial economy, said the US president’s remarks at Davos were “disappointing” but “typical” of Trump.
“Over the last few days, we have watched as president Trump has threatened Greenland, he has threatened Canada and he has threatened Nato allies,” Ford said. “President Trump remains relentless in his campaign to create a more unstable unsafe and uncertain world. There has never been a more important time for Team Canada to stay united.”
Ford also referenced a social media post from Trump which featured an altered image in which the US flag was shown covering Canada, Greenland and Venezuela.
“It is disappointing to see him on a full attack,” said Ford. “Putting the American flag over Canada, over Greenland, it is unacceptable.”
