President Donald Trump orders Canadian companies doing business with America to ‘move to the United States immediately,’ as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says ‘America has changed’

President Donald Trump escalated his ongoing trade war with Canada, calling on Americans to reject Canadian products unless the companies making them relocate to the United States.

In back-to-back posts on Truth Social, Trump touted his tariff policy while intensifying his feud with Canada, crediting his tariffs with having “saved” the American auto industry after he claimed it had been exploited by Canada for years. He branded Canada “one of the Worst Abusers” and said it is time to reject Canadian products in retaliation.

“I don’t want Canadian cars, I don’t want Canadian parts, I don’t want Canadian anything,” Trump wrote.

“They’ve been ripping us off for decades and it’s going to stop. This should have happened long ago with other Presidents, just as stopping Iran should have happened long ago. They want to be treated like a State, but they aren’t one. I deal with the Leadership of many Countries, but I find Canada to be the worst. They are entitled no longer!” he continued.

Roughly 10 minutes later, Trump followed up with a second post outlining the condition under which he would accept Canadian products: Companies would have to move their operations to the U.S.

“Let all Canadian Companies that are doing business with America move to the United States, immediately,” Trump wrote. “Many of them are Companies that moved out years ago due to stupid U.S. Leadership. When you move back, there are no TARIFFS!”

Trade talks collapsed days earlier

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney pulled his country’s negotiators from talks with the United States just hours before a new round of American tariffs was set to take effect.

The decision came after weeks of negotiations over the Trump administration’s proposed 50% tariffs on more than $20 billion worth of Canadian goods including wine, hockey sticks, cement and plywood.

The 50% duties took effect at midnight, and Carney blamed the talks’ collapse on what he described as the Trump administration’s “uneconomic” and “unfair” demands.

“In recent days, the United States proposed new terms that were uneconomic, unfair and undermined the net benefits for Canada and called into question the reliability of any deal,” Carney told reporters. “In short, they asked too much and they offered too little.”

The new U.S. tariffs apply to products including hockey sticks, building materials, liquor and certain clothing categories. Carney vowed that “Canada will match those tariffs dollar for dollar” and followed through by imposing retaliatory tariffs of up to 50% on roughly 700 U.S. products including steel, aluminum and common household goods.

In a speech from Parliament Hill in Ottawa explaining the decision to suspend talks, Carney said the government had “recognized from the start that America has changed” and that the “decades-long process of steadily increasing integration between our economies was over.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce cautioned that “higher tariffs would damage both economies, drive up costs for U.S. families, further disrupt critical supply chains and risk the 13 million American jobs” tied to the North American trade pact. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce called the breakdown “a body blow to North American competitiveness in this self-defeating trade saga.”

The ‘Lake America’ feud

Trump subsequently signed an executive order directing all U.S. federal agencies to refer to Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” a move that drew widespread ridicule.

Google briefly adopted the new name on its mapping platform hours after the order, a change celebrated by some of Trump’s supporters for apparently putting Canada in its place.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford pushed back forcefully. Appearing on ABC’s This Week with host Martha Raddatz, Ford said the renaming resembles satire and called the move “absolutely backwards.”

“It was like something out of Saturday Night Live when he signed a document saying ‘change to Lake America.’ No one’s going to call it Lake America. It’s been Lake Ontario for hundreds of years. It’s going to continue to be Lake Ontario,” Ford told Raddatz.

Ford added that the episode is “so, so disappointing”

“I love the U.S. I love the American people. Canadians love the American people,” he said.

Ford separately warned that a full-blown trade war would be “immensely destructive” to both economies, saying, “Everyone’s feeling bullied by President Trump, and this is the worst thing you could do for the American economy.”

Carney also weighed in on the renaming dispute in a post on X, writing that “We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms. Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario — then, now and always.”

An escalating dispute

The clash between Trump and Ford is not new. Ford, a right-wing populist who has emerged as a vocal proponent of Canadian retaliation, has repeatedly called out Trump since the president’s second term began in 2025, including over Trump’s suggestions that Canada give up its sovereignty and become a U.S. state.

Earlier in the week of August 24, Ford escalated his attacks after the trade talks collapsed, telling a Toronto radio show, “He can kiss my a** as far as I’m concerned. We’re going to go at him full steam.”

The broader tariff fight traces back to late 2024, when Trump first threatened 25% tariffs on Canadian goods and, during a meeting with then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, joked that Canada could become the 51st U.S. state.

The rhetoric has continued under Carney, who took office in 2025. In late July 2025, Trump raised tariffs on Canada from 25% to 35% with no trade deal in sight, tying Canada’s stance on Palestinian statehood to trade negotiations. Carney said he was “disappointed” by the increase but noted that Canada still faced among the lowest average tariff rates of any U.S. trading partner because of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).

Not every Canadian official has taken as combative a tone as Ford, though Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew was similarly blunt in his assessment of the American president, saying, “I think Donald Trump is very weak.”

In the United States, reaction to Canada’s retaliatory measures has been mixed. Democratic Rep. Jared Golden of Maine argued that Canada’s approach would backfire on Ottawa, predicting the tariffs “won’t go well” for the country.