US President Trump on Canada, says they don't have anything that we have to have; "we can get by" without Canada

US President Trump on Canada, says they don't have anything that we have to have; "we can get by" without Canada.

Rhetoric of this kind from the President on Canada fits an established pattern in which bilateral trade partners are publicly downplayed ahead of or during tariff and trade negotiations, with the comments functioning as leverage rather than as policy. Comparable episodes in prior trade disputes have tended to follow a sequence of escalating rhetoric, formal tariff threats or impositions, retaliation, and eventual renegotiation, with the durable market effects coming from the actions rather than the words. The transmission channels specific to Canada are the integrated energy and auto supply chains, crude flows from Alberta into US refining, and the Canadian dollar, which has historically borne the brunt of bilateral trade friction while broader risk assets faded headline-level comments quickly. The distinction worth drawing is between offhand remarks and formal moves: executive orders, tariff schedules, or USMCA-related steps carry follow-through, while verbal dismissals alone have repeatedly been walked back. The tells are whether Canadian officials respond in kind, whether any concrete trade measure follows, and how CAD and the energy complex treat the comment versus prior rhetorical episodes.