About a decade ago, as Barack Obama started wrapping up his final year as president, the Democrat traveled to Canada to deliver remarks to the House of Commons in Ottawa. To understate matters, Obama received an extraordinarily warm welcome.
In fact, an NBC News report from the time noted that he was greeted with “rapturous” applause and an extended standing ovation, which included Canadian lawmakers chanting, “Four more years! Four more years!” for quite a while.
At the same gathering, then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canadians and Americans are more than just neighbors: The two countries’ populations, he said, are “family.” Obama soon after celebrated “the extraordinary alliance” between Canadians and Americans, adding, “Americans can never say it enough: We could not ask for a better friend or ally than Canada. We could not. It’s true, and we do not take it for granted.”
Soon after, Obama went on to declare, “As president, I’ve deepened the ties between our countries. And because of the progress we’ve made in recent years, I can stand before you and say that the enduring partnership between Canada and the United States is as strong as it has ever been, and we are more closely aligned than ever before.”
A decade later, Donald Trump continues to find new ways to shred that partnership. The New York Times reported:
President Trump threatened on Monday to block the opening of a new bridge between the United States and Canada if Canadian officials did not address a long and growing list of grievances, escalating diplomatic tensions between the two countries.
Amid a trade war and a deepening rift between the United States and its northern neighbor, Mr. Trump said that he would ‘not allow’ the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, scheduled to open early this year for traffic between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, ‘until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve.’
To be sure, there are a variety of unanswered questions. What does Trump expect to get from this tantrum? How exactly would he try block the opening of the bridge? Was this a sincere announcement tied to actual White House policy, or was it just some random nonsense that the Republican published to his social media platform that he had no intention of acting on?
The answers to these questions will presumably come into sharper focus in the near future, but there was another element of Trump’s online tirade that stood out as notable.
In the midst of a 290-word rant, largely focused on the Howe Bridge, the president threw in this gem: “[O]n top of everything else, Prime Minister Carney wants to make a deal with China — which will eat Canada alive. … The first thing China will do is terminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada, and permanently eliminate The Stanley Cup.”
Trump made a similar comment a couple of weeks ago, telling reporters that if Canada and China reach a trade agreement, “the first thing” officials in Beijing would do is “end ice hockey.”
Oh my.
As is always the case, context is everything. After a year in which Trump threatened, insulted, penalized and even tried to acquire our neighbor to the north, Canada did what many traditional U.S. allies started doing in 2024: They began looking for new friends.
The more the White House took steps to try to bully Ottawa into submission, the more the Republican administration pushed Canada into China’s waiting arms.
Sounding very much like a man who’s enraged by the idea of his ex dating someone new, Trump apparently thought it would be a good idea to focus on one of Canada’s cultural touchstones, warning Canadians that if they agreed to stronger economic ties to China, the Asian giant would ban hockey.
It’s a ridiculous claim that reeks of desperation. If the American president wants to sound more persuasive and less pitiful, he’ll need fewer arguments that elicit derisive laughter.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
