President Donald Trump appears to be angry that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he wouldn’t let Canada be bullied by the United States.
“I get into Air Force One, the television’s on, and I see a news conference being given by the prime minister of Canada,” Trump said in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “And I said, ‘Oh that’s nice, Justin’s giving a’—And then he talked about how they won’t be bullied. And I said ‘What’s this all about? He didn’t do that to my face, what’s this all about?’”
Videos by VICE
This is just the latest revelation in an ongoing squabble between the two countries. On one side of the ring we have Justin Trudeau armed with trademark Canadian passive aggression saying “Canadians: we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around.” On the other we have Trump being extremely Mad Online, calling Trudeau “meek and mild” and “very dishonest and weak” on Twitter.
It’s not looking like the li’l squabble is slowing down anytime soon with Trump saying, at a press conference about North Korea, that Trudeau’s comments pushing back on Trump’s threatened tariffs will come to haunt the people of Canada. “That’s going to cost a lot of money for the people of Canada. He learned. You can’t do that. You can’t do that,” Trump said on Tuesday. Shortly after Trump then praised the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, saying that he and the man who has committed countless war crimes have a “special bond.”
Sign up for the VICE Canada Newsletter to get the best of VICE Canada delivered to your inbox daily.
“His country does love him. His people, you see the fervor,” Trump told Stephanopoulos. “They have a great fervor,” Trump said. “They’re gonna put it together, and I think they’re going to end up with a very strong country.”
Fun stuff.
It’s revealing to see what exact words pissed Trump off—the refusal to be bullied. Essentially what we have here is the geopolitical equivalent of a bully being pissed off that one of their targets decided to stand up to him—so he’s doubling down. It’s all following the exact same course as it would in Grade 7. We also have Trump’s posse going after the Canadian leader, with former US ambassador to Canada Peter Navarro saying there is a “special place in hell” for leaders like him. (Navarro has since apologized.)
Now that we have our base point of how this threatened trade war got going, we can see how it is going to play out. One: this whole thing ends up with Trump proudly sitting on Justin’s stomach and doing the whole “stop hitting yourself” thing as his advisors stand around cheering and hitting on girls a couple grades lower than them. Two: Trudeau goes full angry kid rage mode like that Australian kid who bodyslammed his bully in that viral video a few years ago and he is invited on Ellen.
There’s also the chance that all this trade war leads to serious action which in turns creates a negative, if not disastrous, impact on working Americans and Canadians but it’s best not to think about that.
Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.
