Trump admin officials mock Canada’s military capabilities: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the country will ‘take their two submarines from the Edmonton Mall and sic them on us’

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent mocked Canada’s military capabilities during a CNBC interview, joking that the country could deploy “two submarines from the Edmonton Mall” against the United States as the trade dispute between the two countries deepened.

“I mean, we’re not at war with Canada. How are we going to be at war with Canada?” Bessent said during an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street. Host Sara Eisen had asked whether markets should expect a “tit-for-tat” trade war with Ottawa.

“What are they going to do — take their two submarines from the Edmonton Mall and sic them on us?” Bessent added.

He argued that a prolonged trade fight made little sense given the disparity between the two economies, telling Eisen he did not believe the U.S. “can be in a tit for tat with someone that’s 13 times larger than you are.”

Bessent also accused Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney of turning the dispute into a “political shouting match” for political gain rather than in the interest of Canadians. He said Carney “came to power on an anti-American, anti-Trump agenda” after trailing “20 points behind in the polls.”

Bessent claimed Canada had been “offered the best trade deal of any country on the globe” but that Carney “chose to walk away from it at the last minute,” according to his CNBC remarks.

A trade war that deteriorated

Bessent’s comments came after weeks of deteriorating negotiations between Washington and Ottawa.

Carney instructed Canadian negotiators to suspend trade talks with the United States, saying last-minute U.S. demands were “unfair” and “uneconomic.” Hours later, the Trump administration imposed 50 percent tariffs on an estimated $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, including wine, hockey sticks and cement, on top of existing duties on steel, aluminum, lumber and vehicles.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer disputed Carney’s account of the breakdown, saying “new demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada” had disrupted a deal Washington had offered.

Greer later told Fox News that no further talks with Canada were planned and that Washington would be “moving forward with measures” in response to any Canadian retaliation.

At a press conference in Ottawa, Carney said the U.S. had “asked too much and offered too little” and called the tariffs “a miscalculation.”

He said Canada would impose its own retaliatory, “dollar-for-dollar” tariffs beginning September 8, targeting U.S. steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper and electronics.

“You’re at war when you get attacked. We got attacked,” Carney told reporters.

The Edmonton Mall reference explained

Bessent’s joke referenced a defunct attraction at West Edmonton Mall in Alberta that operated four recreational submarines on an indoor lake from 1985 until the ride was removed in 2005.

The reference, widely noted in Canadian media coverage, plays on the fact that the mall once had four recreational submarines, the same number as Canada’s current submarine fleet.

The Royal Canadian Navy operates four Victoria-class submarines: HMCS Victoria, Windsor, Corner Brook and Chicoutimi. Canada purchased the vessels from Britain in 1998 and has been modernizing them to keep them operational into the mid-to-late 2030s.

Ottawa is also pursuing a replacement fleet of up to 12 submarines. Canada selected Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems as its preferred supplier, with the first four vessels expected to be delivered in 2034.

Hegseth adds to the mockery

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth separately posted an image on X that appeared to show a young person wearing a Royal Canadian Army cadet uniform, including a red beret, standing beside another person in military dress.

Hegseth’s post included only a Canadian flag emoji and the caption “this is real,” which was widely interpreted as mocking the appearance of the young cadet.

Carney responds to ‘Lake America’ order

The submarine jab followed another flashpoint in the dispute: an executive order signed by President Donald Trump directing federal agencies to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America.”

The order requires the Interior Department to update the Geographic Names Information System within 30 days. The change applies only to U.S. federal usage and does not affect Canadian, international or organizational references to the lake, which straddles New York and Ontario.

Carney rejected the move, saying Canadians recognized that the United States was changing its “trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms.”

He added that “naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario — then, now and always.”