WASHINGTON — Walking through Lafayette Park and across the north side of the White House on Monday afternoon, there was the usual gaggle of people taking selfies. There were also the usual protesters, people with signs reading “not my president” and of course given the recent news, protesting ICE in Minnesota.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement — the trade pact also known as CUSMA — is not relevant for the U.S., but Canada wants it, as he pushed for companies to bring manufacturing back to American soil.
“There’s no real advantage to it — it’s irrelevant,” Trump said. “Canada would love it. Canada wants it. They need it.”
The Detroit Three automakers are heavily reliant on supply chains that include significant parts production in Mexico and Canada, and all three produce hundreds of thousands of vehicles annually in both countries.
Not to worry, with luck we’ll be swimming in ChiCom EV’s thanks to Carney!
In China, driverless delivery vans have turned into roaming memes, unstoppable machines rolling over roads, bikes, and whatever’s in the way. pic.twitter.com/nncGpPktxo
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) January 12, 2026
VANCOUVER—At a critical time of upheaval in global politics, Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to court the attention of one great power and avoid the ire of another, all while holding his political ground at home.
Carney was to leave Canada Tuesday afternoon. En route to Beijing, the prime minister detoured to do the thing he’s accused of not doing enough: listen to the political leaders who could make or break a key part of his ambitious trade agenda.
As Prime Minister Mark Carney heads to China for talks aimed at boosting trade, Premier Doug Ford is imploring him to keep Canadian tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.
The Star reported Monday that Carney’s officials are in “active discussions” with Beijing about lowering or dropping the 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese EVs that Canada imposed in 2024.
That’s because the prime minister — who has brought Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe with him on the trade mission — hopes that, in exchange, China will remove its punitive counter-tariffs on Canadian canola and seafood.
The number of Canadians travelling to and from the United States by car was down for the 12th consecutive month, Statistics Canada data shows.
In December, 1.3 million Canadians returned from the U.S. by automobile, a “steep decline” of 30.7 per cent from the same month in 2024, says Statistics Canada data released on Monday.
The data noted that Dec. 28 was the busiest day for road travel at the border, with 73,800 Canadians returning to the country.
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump appears to be trying to change the global order one barrel of oil at a time. With Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro out, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei possibly out next, China must be getting nervous, and Cuba is trying to deny reality.
OTTAWA — Canadian negotiators are in “active discussions” with China about lowering or dropping tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles in exchange for easing punitive Chinese counter-tariffs on Canadian canola and seafood, but government officials declined to say how it might affect Canada’s trade tensions with a U.S. administration that is hawkish on blocking China’s EVs from North America.
On the eve of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s trip to Beijing, the talks are considered so politically sensitive as the U.S. and Canada navigate the upcoming negotiation to renew the North American free trade pact that Canadian officials would say very little about the tariff dispute that is jamming Ottawa between China and the U.S. and opened a double trade war for this country.
It appears Ford was not asked for comment.
It is not just the attack on Venezuela, breaches of the United Nations’ Charter, or the use of illegal force that still somehow left a dictatorship in place.
It is not just the threats to annex Greenland or to make Canada the 51st state — both of which would violate the territorial integrity of sovereign states protected under international law.
It’s not just the admiration that U.S. President Donald Trump has for Russia’s Vladimir Putin or Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, both in the process of illegally annexing territory.
The Elbow People are afraid! I doubt Canada will receive support beyond “words”.
Most Canadians say tariffs are squeezing household budgets and forcing changes in day-to-day spending, according to federal polling that found rising prices and growing financial stress tied to U.S. trade policy.
Blacklock’s Reporter says survey results show 64% of Canadians have changed how they spend money because of tariffs, while 80% concluded policies under U.S. President Donald Trump have made everyday goods more expensive.
(Incognito)
Doug Ford’s recent comments about pulling Crown Royal off Ontario liquor store shelves because its parent company is closing a bottling plant should concern every Canadian who cares about jobs, trade, and our country’s reputation.
Crown Royal is a Manitoba-made product with a long history in this country. Threatening to punish it over a corporate decision made by its parent company is not strength. It is political theatre. And political theatre has consequences.
The U.S. raid on Venezuela has raised the threat level in Canada. The immediate concern has been whether it would dent Canadian oil exports, though the bigger worry is if the apparent success of the military operation in Venezuela makes this country next. Donald Trump has never backed away from his suggestion that Canada should become the 51st state, and the White House has laid hungry eyes on our mineral resources.
Just hours after the United States announced it had attacked oil-rich Venezuela and captured its president Nicolás Maduro, the wife of a top adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump issued a stark warning to Canada on social media.
“The U.S. doesn’t need anything from Canada,” wrote Katie Miller, whose husband Stephen Miller is Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser. “Free trade is over.”
It’s a familiar refrain from those within Trump’s orbit, and from the president himself. But the argument has taken on new meaning now that the United States could have access to Venezuela’s staggeringly large reserves of heavy crude oil — similar to what’s produced in Western Canada.
A federal Conservative member of Parliament from Manitoba says Ontario Premier Doug Ford didn’t have “all the facts in front of him” when he doubled down on threats to pull Crown Royal off shelves.
MP James Bezan, who represents the Selkirk-Interlake-Eastman riding north of Winnipeg, where the whisky is distilled, said Thursday he spoke with Ford on the matter after the premier once again said he would remove Crown Royal from Liquor Control Board of Ontario listings.
“I had to present some of those facts that Crown Royal is proudly made-in-Manitoba whisky. It’s Canada’s number 1 export spirit,” Bezan said.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose province is home to much of Canada’s auto industry, is warning the Prime Minister against reducing the 100-per-cent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles during Mark Carney’s trip to Beijing next week.
He said China should instead set up EV factories in Ontario. A Chinese EV-maker opened an electric-bus assembly plant in Newmarket, Ont., in 2019, for instance.
The monster of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, is gone. Good. Most can agree on that, despite the trashing of international law employed by the Donald Trump administration to get him.
But as the predator President of the United States warns of toppling other nations – which, for one thing, distracts from afflictions in his own broken country – the task will be much more difficult.
