Canadian P.M. Candidate Threatens Trump With ‘Biggest Trade Blow U.S. Has Ever Endured’

Former Canadian Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who hopes to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as head of the Liberal Party, threatened President Donald Trump earlier this week, saying, “I have a message today for President Trump. If you force our hand, we will inflict the biggest trade blow that the United States has ever endured.”

A message for President Trump: pic.twitter.com/hHMA5L0DnS

— Chrystia Freeland (@cafreeland) February 10, 2025

Trump issued an executive order imposing a 25%  tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum, which will take effect on March 12. Trudeau responded by saying, “Tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum would be entirely unjustified.”

“The prime minister is absolutely right,” Freeland said on CNN to anchor Erin Burnett. “These tariffs are illegal. They are unjustified. And crucially, Erin, they are self-mutilating for the United States. They’re going to hurt the U.S. really badly.”

“You know, I think you guys sometimes think Canada — well, actually, I don’t think Americans think about Canada all that often, which is fine with us,” she said. “But what you should remember is we are actually your largest market. We are larger than China, Japan, the U.K., and France combined. And that means we have economic leverage. Our country is really united behind this. We will use that leverage.”

Burnett asked what the “trade blow” would look like, prompting Freeland to state: “Dollar for dollar retaliation, any tariff imposed on Canada, Canada will respond to. And our response is going to be smart and targeted. The tariffs the U.S. is threatening Canada with are across the board and they’re going to hurt you. Take aluminum. Aluminum is basically electricity in solid form.  And in imposing a 25 percent tariff on Canadian aluminum. You’re hurting yourselves. You’re putting a 25 percent tax on electricity, and you actually need more electricity today in this AI race with China.”

“Our retaliation is going to be a lot more surgical than that. We are going to go after American stakeholders who matter to the White House,” she continued. “I have proposed a 100 percent tariff on all Teslas. I am calling on all the countries that are affected by this tariff to join us and our retaliation will target specific Trump constituencies. Another group that we’re going to go after is Wisconsin dairy farmers. We know how important they are for the president, and we’re not going to let them sell their products in Canada anymore.”

“We do not want to have a fight with you,” she asserted. “We would prefer to be your partner and we can be a great partner. But if you hit us, we’re going to have to hit you back. “

But Freeland later added, “We will design our retaliation to target the people who we think are the most influential, the people who, if they are feeling pain from our retaliation, will say to the president, let’s not do this anymore.”