Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took a pointed jab at Canada’s military readiness Monday as a fast-escalating trade dispute between Washington and Ottawa grew even more bitter.
“Very unfortunate that PM [Mark] Carney has turned this into a political shouting match. I mean, we’re not at war with Canada,” Bessent said during an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.”
“What are they going to do — take their two submarines from the Edmonton Mall and sic them on us?” he added.
Bessent, 64, also accused Carney, 61, of putting his own political interests ahead of the country’s, saying the Canadian prime minister was “not doing what’s best for the Canadian people,” but instead “doing what’s best for Mark Carney.”
Speaking with host Sara Eisen from Asheville, NC, where G20 finance ministers were meeting, Bessent claimed Canada had rejected an unusually favorable agreement. “They were offered the best trade deal of anyone on the globe and he walked away from it at the last moment,” he said.
The latest clash follows the US decision on Aug. 22 to levy a hefty 50% tariff on roughly $28 billion worth of Canadian imports, including beer, cheese and electronics. Those penalties came in addition to existing duties on aluminum, lumber, vehicles and steel.
Ottawa quickly vowed to retaliate, announcing plans for dollar-for-dollar tariffs set to begin Sept. 8. A day after the US move, Carney told reporters that Canada had been “attacked” by its southern neighbor.
“You’re at war when you get attacked. We got attacked,” the prime minister said. “That’s fine. We’ve got the reserves. We’ve got the resilience. We’ve got the plan. We’ve got the focus. We will respond.”
Trump, in response, renamed Lake Ontario — which straddles the border between Canada and New York State — Lake America by executive order, while declaring the US’ northern neighbor “the worst to deal with on trade.”
Carney rejected the decree, stating that “things must be called by their name, and this lake is called Lake Ontario, today and forever.”
