U.S. President Donald Trump claimed on Wednesday that Canada owes its continued existence to the United States while calling out Prime Minister Mark Carney for delivering a speech that condemned coercion by great powers.
Speaking in Davos, Switzerland, where he made the case for a U.S. acquisition of Greenland, Trump said he needs the Danish territory for his proposed “golden dome,” a missile defence system that could cover North America.
Trump said the dome will protect Canada due to geography and the country isn’t grateful enough that such a system is in the works. Carney has been non-committal in the past about Canada participating in or paying for what Trump is floating.
“Canada gets a lot of freebies from us. By the way, they should be grateful but they’re not,” Trump said.
In a speech to the World Economic Forum, U.S. President Donald Trump said he watched Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech the previous day and ‘he wasn’t so grateful – they should be grateful.’ Trump added that ‘Canada gets a lot of freebies from us.’
“I watched your prime minister yesterday. He wasn’t so grateful — they should be grateful to the U.S., Canada. Canada lives because of the United States,” Trump said, an apparent reference to the military protection the U.S. provides to the continent.
“Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements,” he said, but not to the prime minister directly, who left the summit before Trump delivered his remarks. The two did not meet on the sidelines of the summit.
Without invoking Trump by name, Carney referenced “American hegemony” and said Tuesday that world powers are using economic integration as “weapons.”
“Canadians know that our old, comfortable assumption that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security is no longer valid,” Carney said.
As it grapples with this new dynamic, Carney said Canada must be “principled and pragmatic” and turn inward to build up the country and diversify trading relationships to become less reliant on countries like the U.S., now that it’s clear integration can lead to “subordination.”
n a bold speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Prime Minister Mark Carney warned allies the ‘old order is not coming back,’ and that middle powers must work together or end up ‘on the menu’ of great powers weaponizing economic integration.
Carney said this more isolationist approach, where there’s a “world of fortresses,” will make countries poorer, fragile and less sustainable. But, he said, it’s coming nonetheless and Canada must work with like-minded allies where possible to push back against domination by larger, wealthier and well-armed countries.
“The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger and more just.”
During his long, rambling remarks, Trump again referenced Canada while he was touting the supposed benefits of his global tariffs regime.
He said these levies are bringing “hundreds of big factories [and] car plants” back to the U.S.
“[They’re] coming in from Canada, coming in from Mexico, from Japan. Japan’s coming in and building plants here in order to avoid tariffs,” Trump said.
Trump has been fixated on the damage he has inflicted on the Canadian auto sector.
At a White House news conference on Tuesday to mark one year since his second inauguration, Trump cited trouble in Canada’s automotive industry as one of his accomplishments.
Trump told workers at a Ford factory in Dearborn, Mich., last week that Americans “don’t need cars made in Canada.” Vehicles are the second-largest Canadian export by value at $46.5 billion in 2024, of which 92 per cent was exported to the U.S.
Auto assembly plants in Brampton and Ingersoll, Ont., have been idled since Trump launched his trade war. And some automakers like General Motors and Chrysler parent company Stellantis have announced new investments in the U.S.
Yet despite the president’s rhetoric, preliminary data from the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics shows there has actually been a contraction in auto industry jobs south of the border over the last year.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford responded to U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments that ‘Canada lives because of the United States’, in a speech from Switzerland on Wednesday. ‘You don’t attack your closest friend, your closest neighbour and your number one customer in the world,’ Ford said.
Trump’s latest broadside also comes a day after he posted an altered image on social media of the U.S. flag over Canada and Greenland, a nod to his past 51st state annexationist taunts.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Trump’s comments about Canada, and mocking the country’s territorial sovereignty by imposing the Stars and Stripes on our land, is “typical Trump,” but it’s still “unacceptable.”
“There’s one person that’s causing this upheaval, not just here in Canada, but around the world, and that’s President Trump,” he said.