When trade wars escalate beyond tariff numbers, personal attacks become the new weapon of choice. Following the collapse of US-Canada trade negotiations, Trump imposed a 50% tariff on certain Canadian goods on Saturday, prompting Canadian Prime Minister Carney to announce countermeasures. But the real drama unfolded between Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Trump.
"Canada Is Not For Sale" - Ford's response came after Trump threatened to double Canadian auto tariffs to 50% on Monday to punish Carney's retaliation. While Ford was live on radio, the host read Trump's post aloud, and Ford blurted out: "He can kiss my ass." That was just the opening salvo.
Trump then launched a targeted personal attack on Truth Social, calling Ford the "less attractive, less intelligent, and overall inferior brother" of the late Toronto Mayor Rob Ford - the Canadian political figure who shocked the world in 2013 with a video showing him smoking crack cocaine, and who died of cancer in 2016. Trump also labeled Ford as Prime Minister Carney's "flunky" and threatened: "Most of Canada's electricity, oil, and natural gas must transit through the US. Someone should make these clowns behave, or the consequences will be far more severe!" This was widely interpreted as a veiled threat against the Enbridge energy pipeline, which carries western Canadian crude through the US Midwest and back to Ontario refineries. If the pipeline becomes a bargaining chip, Canada's energy lifeline would be strangled.
At a Monday press conference, a hard-hat-wearing Ford showed no weakness before the cameras: "I'm not going to listen to a bankrupt king," he called Trump a "dictator" and a "loser," adding: "My little toe has more courage and brains than his entire body."
This isn't the first confrontation between the two. A year ago, Ford imposed surcharges on electricity exports to the US, Trump threatened to raise Canadian steel and aluminum tariffs to 50%, and Ford quickly backed down. Three months later, Trump still set global steel and aluminum tariffs at 50%. Last October, Ford's government even aired ads on US television using President Reagan's speech against tariffs, which directly led Trump to suspend trade negotiations with Canada.
In response, Ford mimicked Trump's iconic red "Make America Great Again" baseball cap with his own version - dark blue, emblazoned with "Canada Is Not For Sale." As the trade war transforms from numerical games into an insult-laden drama series, from tariff lists to family scandals, relations between North America's two largest economies are sliding into dangerous uncharted territory. Ford's warning that "Americans will make you pay in the midterm elections" hints that behind this war of words lies a more intense political and economic storm.
While Trump and Ford trade insults, doubled auto tariffs, energy pipeline threats, and midterm election maneuvering - the real economic leverage - are quietly reshaping the landscape of North American trade.