"America has been carrying Canada for decades, but no longer!"

"The U.S.A. will always be far bigger, richer, and stronger than Canada. Without the United States, Canada couldn’t survive — It’s where they get all of their money and, because of their current bad leadership, primarily Governor Carney, and his Flunky, Ford, they will not be allowed to keep taking advantage of the United States — Their key to survival."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

 

"Canada is a country that has under-invested in its military that quite literally would get invaded by a foreign country were it not for the umbrella of protection provided by the U.S." 

"We have to remember Canada is a state. Sorry, Freudian slip."

"That was actually an accident."

U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance 

U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance delivers remarks in Brewer, Maine, on Aug. 24, 2026.  Anna Moneymaker—POOL/AFP/Getty Images

 

"Fact: Canada has a brave and professional military. It has deployed into combat with us many times, including D-Day."

"Canadian troops, under my NATO command, faced intense fire in Afghanistan where many were killed in action."

"I honour their memory and salute them."

James Stavridis, retired U.S. admiral 

 

"Mr. Secretary [U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy: Canada is 'a country that doesn't have a military'] please stop embarrassing us."

"I served in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2009-2010 alongside Canadian soldiers."

"They were skilled, courageous and effective."

"We were lucky to be on the same side with them."

Ben Hodges, former commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe 

Corporal Brandon Bourdon, 1RCR B COY 4 Platoon, fires an M72 rocket launcher at insurgents that set up an offensive in a grape hut, Kandahar, Afghanistan. Photo: DND AR2010-0320-78

 

Post-U.S./Canada trade negotiations called off a week earlier has brought sarcastically undiplomatic recriminations and insults from both countries, in verbal attacks against one another. New tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods was slapped by Washington on its erstwhile trading partner in a show of strength and bad faith. The trade war has now morphed into a strident war of words, with few holds barred. 

 

President Trump has once again reverted to speaking of the Canadian prime minister as 'governor', presumably of another de facto U.S. state, the 51st such state that Mr. Trump has been dangling before Canada for over a year, mocking Canada's sovereignty and endearing himself in the process to patriotic Canadians. President Trump stated on Monday his intention to increase levies on Canadian cars and automotive parts to 50 percent. Canada's response on retaliatory tariffs arrived a day later, despite U.S. threats not to advance toward retaliation of the punishingly steep U.S. tariff escalation.

 

President Trump is fond of declaring his contempt for Canada's trade offerings, sneering time and again that Canada has nothing that the United States needs or wants. The reality is, the American farming community would be lost without the potash fertilizer it obtains from the world's largest producer of potash -- Saskatchewan -- which provides the U.S. with over 90% of its needed potash. Although few countries produce potash, it is fungible, since Belarus and Russia also produce it, but given relations between the U.S. and those two countries they would be an unlikely alternate source. 

 

The exterior of PotashCorp's (now Nutrien's) Rocanville potash plant near Rocanville, Sask. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Troy Fleece)

 

Canadian gas and crude oil are also exports to the United States that contribute to serving the needs of America. In this new conflict expressed in insults and innuendo, the U.S. vice-president has added his voice to describing Canada as the 51st state. Battleground states for Republicans see themselves struggling in the  upcoming mid-term elections with resentment fuelled by the escalating tariff war. Tariffs are a form of punitive taxation that U.S. citizens recognize is impacting their own costs of living. Border state governors who do ample business with cross-border Canadian provinces are anything but pleased over the impact the tariffs have inflicted them with. 

 

Now, to add to the voices critical of the Trump government's fixation on punishing tariffs imposed on global allies and foes alike, former U.S. national security officials and some Republications are expressing their impressions of embarrassment they feel over the verbal demeaning of an ally and neighbour. The more recent barbs in description of the Canadian military have not sat well in the  regard of high-placed U.S. military members.

 

After musing over renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, The U.S. president proceeded to do just that formally, expunging the Iroquois name of the lake that has long been globally respected and accepted, in exchange for his personal preference. Even conjecturing that he might feel persuaded at a later date to rename both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Clearly, this is a governing administration that has got out of hand. The formal signed-into-law transitioning of Lake Ontario to Lake America was occasioned, stated the president because "we don't expect to [be] doing much business with Ontario any longer". How the two issues are related is beyond comprehension.

 

Donald Trump signs the executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington DC on Thursday. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

 

Canada, as it happens, deployed some 40,000 troops to Afghanistan over a period of twelve long years, and continues long afterward to mourn the death of 158 of its servicemen and women on the Afghanistan battlefield. As a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, Canada is the closest geographic military partner with the United States. In addition, both share the North American Aerospace Defence Command, a mutual defence organization.  

"I still think imposing new tariffs on Canada is a mistake [that will increase costs for Mainers]."

"We produce a lot in Maine -- our blueberries, our potatoes, our lobster,r our lumber -- that is processed across the border."

"If it comes back with a huge tariff on it ... that increases the cost of eating, building homes, and our best known products."

Republican U.S. senator Susan Collins, Maine 

Canada's new Trump-averse "Buy Canada" Mantra

"It's shocking that our view of the U.S. is now veering closer to how we feel about Russia, a country that is viewed very unfavourably." 

"In 25 years of polling I don't recall it ever being this low. And to see the United States viewed only a little more positive than say China, with whom we've had problems, shows how much damage has been done to a relationship with a country that has long seen us as its closest ally."

Jack Jedwab, president, Association for Canadian Studies, Montreal

A new poll by Leger suggests Canadians are divided on whether they see the U.S. as an an ally, a neutral country or an enemy. Photo by iStock

A historic 'realignment' regarding the countries that the Canadian population view as their main allies has become sharply evident in the very short reign to date of American President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump's hostility toward Canada has reshaped public opinion in Canada to a degree never before countenanced in reaction to his economic and sovereignty threats against Canada. Although he himself signed a trade agreement (Canada-Mexico-United States -- or CUSMA) he has now unilaterally negated it with his imposition of massive tariffs on goods imported into the United States from his North American neighbours.

 

With that imposition of tariffs, interrupting the flow of manufactured and raw materials in a continent-wide intertwined economy in production, has come a warning from the man himself that his more malign intention is to impact Canada's economy to an extent that his invitation for Canada to fold itself into the United States as its 51st state will find favour with a population he has beggared. His conceit of himself as a great 'negotiator' is to go for the jugular and he has done this with gusto, leaving former friends and allies dazed at the swiftness of their inter-relationship's demise.

 

Canadians now look to the European Union and United Kingdom as the countries most likely to remain their friends, allies and trading partners. The wreckage of the Canada-Mexico-U.S. free trade relationship will lead both Canada and Mexico to search out other countries with which business can be conducted on a trustworthy basis. There is now scant-to-none left with the United States whose moves can be characterized as dishonourable.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing an executive order in the White House, on February 10, 2025. Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

Some two-thirds of Canadians feel that Mr. Trump's "expressed interest to make Canada the 51st American State" must be taken "very seriously", with a slim majority of respondents to the Leger poll commissioned by the Association for Canadian Studies going on to state that they are personally willing to defend Canada should the situation turn into a military threat of invasion. The historical view by Canadians of Americans has been one of deep friendship, trade and military alliance aside. That has now dwindled remarkably.

 

Positive opinions of various countries from June to the present day had been tracked by the survey, with the sole country's opinion on a steep downward trend in Canadian eyes being the United States. The current survey of 1,548 respondents indicates positive opinion of the United States remains most common among young respondents, 25 to 34, a 42 percent. Among an older demographic, 55 upward, it is 27 percent. Asked the same question relating to the American people, rather than their government, positive numbers leap, still reaching overall just 50 percent.

"While the 50 percent is low compared to past surveys, it still shows that a distinction is being made between our views of Americans and our view of their current government."

"Clearly for the time being, President Trump has soured our relationship."

Jack Jedwab 

Over the past year, all other countries' favourability rating remain stable, moving no more than two percentage points: Ukraine at 66 percent, Israel at 36 percent, China at 30 percent, Iran at 17 and Russia at 18. Young Canadians, 18 to 24 appear fairly negative about Israel, just 25 percent with a positive opinion in comparison to 46 percent of people over 65 years of age. Young people on the other hand, are relatively positive on China, at 38 percent, compared to just 28 percent older than 65.

 

Interestingly enough, the young in Canada appear quite a bit more interested on Iran and Russia in comparison with older people, at 30 percent of those age 18 to 24 holding positive opinions of both. Those over 65 are just 12 percent positive on Iran and nine percent on Russia. Men appear more positively disposed than women to the U.S., Israel and Russia. The split is 12 points for Israel with between 42 percent of men with a positive view as compared to 30 percent of women.

 

As for defending their country, fully 38 percent of those 18 to 34, would do so, in comparison to respondents older than 55 seeing 17 percent commitment. Two thirds of Canadians overall agree a travel boycott is an effective response, while among young people that falls to 56 percent. Among those older than 55, 78 percent agree on a travel boycott. "Buy Canada" has become a popular message. 

Graphic assembled by The Maple staff using photo of the American flag by Charles "Duck" Unitas via Unsplash and official presidential portraits via Wikiepdia.