Premier Doug Ford says United States President Donald Trump is “probably the most disliked politician in the world,” intensifying a war of words and tariffs between Canada and its neighbour to the south.
Ford made the comments during an appearance on CNN Thursday morning, where the Ontario premier talked about Canada’s response to tariffs.
Asked how Canadians viewed the U.S. president after months of tariffs and now-dormant talk of becoming the 51st state, Ford said Trump was deeply unpopular.
“He’s probably the most disliked politician in the world in Canada because he’s attacked his closest family member and that’s the way we look on it,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
“When I talk to the governors and senators and Congress people — even Republicans — totally disagree, but they’re too scared to come out and say anything because the president will go after them.”
At the beginning of the month, Trump added 35 per cent tariffs to all Canadian products sold in America not covered under the current trade deal.
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While Ford has advocated dollar-for-dollar counter tariffs in response, Prime Minister Mark Carney has not taken the advice, not introducing new measures on U.S. products.
On Wednesday, Ford had suggested he was concerned Trump could tear up the existing Canada-U.S. trade deal and start new negotiations early.
“This guy’s coming at us,” he said. “This isn’t going to be a church picnic. Let’s get down to it, and we’ll see what happens. I’m praying everything is going to go fine, but if it doesn’t. I am going to ask the people: Do you trust President Trump? I don’t.”
Speaking on CNN, he didn’t elaborate on why he was concerned early negotiations were possible.
Ford previously railed against Trump during February’s snap election campaign and after his third majority victory.
He took aim at him in March by cancelling a contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink and removing U.S. alcohol from the shelves of the LCBO.
Trump himself has broadly ignored Ontario’s premier and his comments.
Ford caught his attention once earlier in the year with a short-lived surcharge on electricity exports to the United States and a threat to cut northern states, like New York, off entirely.
The threat sparked a contradictory response from the U.S. president, who called Ford a “strong man” before bragging about how the threat had been withdrawn.
“We had a problem with Ontario and they dropped that,” Trump said in March. “We let them know what we were going to be doing, they dropped it immediately. Electricity, you shouldn’t be playing with electricity, it affects people’s lives here.”
Ford stood the energy surcharge down after barely 24 hours in exchange for a meeting with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik in Washington, D.C.
While he has said the idea is still “on the table,” Ford has only talked about it in response to questions and showed no indication he’ll reintroduce the charge.
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