Front Burner - Canada's complicated 'situationship' with the U.S. (FB Exclusive)

Episode Date: November 15, 2025

It started with U.S. President Donald Trump's 'quips' about Canada becoming the 51st state. Nearly a year later, the Canada-U.S. relationship has weathered a barrage of tariffs, trade threats and taunts. CBC's Washington bureau — Paul Hunter, Katie Simpson and Willy Lowry — weigh in on the past year of Canada-U.S. relations under Trump, the current trade stalemate and whether the country that's been known as Canada's ally is even still a friend.

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Join us. Because kids these days, we need you more than ever. Donate at GeoFoundation.com. This is a CBC podcast. Hey, everybody, it's Jamie, and if you are a regular front burner listener, you know that we spend a lot of time talking politics. And in the past year, U.S. President Donald Trump has been driving a lot of those conversations, particularly when it comes to Canada. It's now been just over 12 months since Trump's re-election. Today, CBC's Washington correspondence, Paul Hunter, Katie Simpson, and Will Lowry are here

with a look at the past year of U.S.-Canada relations and whether the country that's been known as our closest ally is even still a friend. We have that conversation for you now. Have a listen. Are we all good, kids? As good as we're going to be. That's a low bar. I love low bars.

So if either of you, Katie, Willie, had to, characterize the Canada-U.S. relationship right now. What stage are we in? Are we still committed? Are we taking a break? Is it time for counseling? I don't think counseling would hurt at this point. But no, I think I think we're taking a break and trying to decide if our feelings are real at the moment and whether this is something we want to come back to. I think we need to reframe this conversation, reframe the question and it's going to get a little weird. But, you know, I think we're cousins and we're intertwined no matter what. We are still in this together no matter what and you can't sort of you can't pick your family. You can't pick your family. You can't pick your family, but you can invite them to Christmas dinner or not and do they get invited? Exactly. And do they get a present? You know what? In some cases, no. So that's our assessment, I guess, of course. For his part, a little over two weeks ago in Air Force One, the president had this to say about Canada. Canada's been ripping us off for a long time, and they're not going to rip us off anymore.

Canada has been ripping us off for a long time. One of the most difficult countries to deal with is in Canada. As much as I love Canada itself and the people of Canada, they've just had a lot of bad representatives. They did a fake ad yesterday. They were caught. The Ronald Reagan Foundation was the one that caught him, and it was totally the opposite of what they said. So I don't like that. That's sturdy pool.

I can't do that. And let me just tell you, they shouldn't have done it. Never one to mince his words, Donald Trump. So after listening to that, I think it's pretty clear where relations are right now between Canada, the U.S., at least from his perspective. But look, since Donald Trump's re-election last November, Canada's been on, you know, the proverbial roller coaster in its dealings with the United States. Here at the CBC's Washington Bureau, we've been strapped in for the ride up close. But today we're going to take a bit of a step back. And, yeah, let's talk about the state of Canada's relationship with the U.S. one year later.

Status, it is, as they say, complicated. I'm Paul Hunter, and I'm a senior correspondent for CBC News here in Washington. I'm Katie Simpson, and I am also a senior correspondent here in Washington. I'm Willie Lowry, and I am not a senior correspondent. But I am a correspondent. You're senior to us. You know, if we take a step back to one year ago, we're coming up on Thanksgiving weekend here in the U.S. And it is such a big, big holiday down here.

It was this time last year when the Canada-U.S. relationship really launched into this new phase. And Donald Trump had won the election, and he'd put out a post on social media threatening to impose new tariffs on Canada and Mexico. And of course, there was a massive reaction in Canada. And little did we know that behind the scenes, officials in then Prime Minister, Justice, intruder's office. They had been sort of planting the seeds to try and get some one-on-one time with Donald Trump. And I'm having dinner with our wonderful colleague, Jennifer Barr, who sort of leads us into the assignment charge here in the Washington Bureau. The great Jen Bar. The great Jen bar. Seconded. And as we're having dinner on the Friday, Ottawa starts to get where there's

buzz that the prime minister's plane is heading somewhere. And it hadn't been on a schedule. And so we're all wondering what on earth is up. And so I start. working the phones, my colleagues in Ottawa start working the phones and we find out, oh yeah, Justin Trudeau is on his way with a high profile delegation to Mara Lago. He's going to be having dinner with Donald Trump. And this is where the whole sort of evolution of the 51st state threat really sort of comes to life. The dawn of it, really. Yeah. And I've had so many conversations with people on deep background, people who either were briefed on it or were there. And the way the scene is described is that Donald Trump is at this table with people who are going to be joining his

cabinet, these high-profile people, like Howard Lutnik, Howard Lutnik was one of them. Doug Bergen, like, yep, they're there and they're there with their wives, and they're at this table, and it's kind of quiet, and Donald Trump has his iPad, and he can control the music at Mara Lago with this iPad, and he's been fiddling around with it, and there's sort of small talk at the table. And it's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who sort of broaches the topic of the 25% tariff. And whatever the exact language was, Donald Trump very clearly interpreted it as a moment of weakness. What we understand is that Trudeau said something along the lines of, you know, if you go ahead with this tariff is going to have a massive impact on the Canadian economy,

something to that effect, to which the response from Trump, what we have since heard was, well, you're a country. What do you mean you can't handle this little tariff? You know, if that's going to be the case. And then there was sort of people jumping in and jokes saying, well, maybe you could be the 51st state, be the governor. And that's how it sort of started. It started as a joke. And at first, we didn't hear about this. When we were talking to people who were there, it actually came out a week or so after the dinner. It was leaked to Fox News. And so Fox News reported it and it got a little bit of attention in the United States, but it exploded in Canada with people trying to downplay it, saying, oh, no, he's just joking. It's not that big a deal. But

the thing is, even if it was meant as a joke, it gained momentum in Donald Trump's world. He, you know, posted things on social media, him standing on the top of a mountain, sort of looking over the rocky mountains. And he started talking about Canada in the same way he was talking about Greenland and how the United States needed to take control of Greenland. Panama Canal. Yeah, the Panama Canal. And all it was, he was talking about it in all those kinds of serious ways, even if it did sort of evolve into where it is now, where people are sort of laughing about it. It was something that was so deeply offensive to Canadians, and he wouldn't stop talking about it. And it was one of those things that just kept coming up and

up and up and up. But it really, really started just about a year ago. So when did it become like an official position? Was it ever? Like when did it elevate itself in the White House? I think that the Canadian reaction certainly elevated the concerns. concerns around it because Canadians viewed it as such a hostile statement. The time when the relationship, the personal relationship between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump was really at a low point, I remember we did story after story after story, where the national and your world tonight, they would give me extra time in our actual files so we could just let these moments breathe because Canadians need to hear these things

and they need to hear the full context of them. And then it sort of started to die down once the Canadian election kicked off. Does he still bring it up every once in a while? He certainly does. But it's not at the same sort of level that it had been. And Paul, you said when did it become kind of official status at the White House? I don't know if it ever did. That's kind of what I was implying. And I think that's one of the things with this presidency. So much of what he does, he tries on for affectation and sees how it plays. and his team is scrambling to say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, is this real? Is this our policy?

And that's pretty much how he dictates U.S. foreign policy. He kind of wakes up, tries something on, likes the reaction he gets. And then his team scrambles to figure out the legality, figure out the reality of whatever he tweeted. And I'm not sure. In most cases, it is a tweet or a true social, kind of how it will play out. And I'm not sure if Americans at large ever took it seriously. Every time we step outside the office, we talk to people, sometimes on deployments or for stories or sometimes just the restaurants or whatever. It was a joke, is my sense back from pretty much everybody I've talked anywhere in a so-called Republican part of the country or in a Democrat.

So I'm not sure that they took it seriously. I don't know what you guys heard. Americans that I'd spoken with certainly did seem to take it as a joke and didn't understand the context and the reaction happening in Canada. I was here in D.C. and I was covering this conference with a whole bunch of different governors and a couple of Canadian premiers showed up. It was Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston and Ontario Premier Doug Ford. And they were here to work the rooms to try to make the anti-tariff argument. And we'd cornered the Democratic governor of Connecticut, a man named Ned Lamont,

and he is very anti-tariffs. He talked to us about how his economy depends very heavily on trade with Canada. It's a huge help with employment. And as I'm having this interview with him, he goes, I love Canada so much. It's my favorite 51st state. And when we do interviews, it's our job as journalists not to react. But when he said it, it caught me so off guard, I made a face. And I was like, what? And he noticed, he goes, that's a joke. And I said, sir, when people in Canada hear this, they are not going to take it as a joke. And then he said, oh, well, leave that part out. And I'm like, no. When you tell me to leave a part out. That's the part that's going in. But I do think part of the MAGA movement, part of

them, you know, their critique of the Democrats and of American politics is to tell everybody to take a breather, relax, and, you know, poke fun at some of the words that people use. So I think a lot of the people within the movement think, oh, it's funny. It's a joke. Not that it actually means anything more than Trump kind of poking fun at a neighbor, not thinking about the repercussions that would have in our country. Funny you should say that, Willie. If we're on camera right now, I'd wave these documents in front of me as a prop. It's Donald Trump's inaugural address from 2017.

Oh. Okay? Because other people will say, listen to his words, right? So I'm going to read from this. Americans want good jobs for themselves. These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public. But too many citizens are near rusted out factories, scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation. The American carnage stops here and now.

And he goes on to say, while other countries get rich, right, our strength and confidence of our country, the U.S. has disappeared over the horizon. One by one, factories are shuttered. from this moment on, it's going to be America first. This was 2017. Nobody should be surprised that he is trying to live up to those promises that he made to the tens of millions of people who voted for him. Take your point, because that is what a lot of the MAGA crowd will say, Willie, right? Like, he's just being Donald Trump. But these were his promises, and he's living up to them.

Canada, don't be surprised. And I think Canada should absolutely take what he says seriously. in a way that perhaps, you know, the Americans would not. I mean, what he says matters, and it's going to have a profound. It already is having a profound impact on our country. And long lasting. And our economy is so intertwined that, you know, absolutely Canadians need to take what he says seriously. And I think, you know, he really meant what he said there.

And he really believes that America needs to become, you know, He's an isolationist, right? Like, America needs to be able to be all of it, all of what it needs to be by itself without others. On that inaugural address that you referenced there, Paul, I believe it was reported at the time that after then, you know, Donald Trump delivered that speech that George W. Bush, the former president, reportedly said, that's some weird shit, man. I think, in fairness, there is a lot more in there. But, you know, back to the relationship, right? And how has it changed? So that speech was obviously more than one year ago back in 2017.

But Trump has, you know, being making those points ever since. And so the relationship between the two countries, we heard from Mark Carney that it has, the relationship is over. The U.S. is not a reliable partner. Does that mean, to your point, forever? You know, but these changes in the relationship will take a long time to play out to ever change back. We don't know. I mean, will we always be next door neighbors?

Absolutely. To your analogy, Katie, about, you know, are we living in different parts of the house right now? We're cousins. We're cousins. We're cousins. Just don't always like each other. Meanwhile, in Canada, though, the flip side is, holy cow, right? patriotism through the roof

I sat down with Mike Myers this year and with his Canada's not for sale and elbows up business and like it caught him but he wasn't expecting that it was kind of a spur of the moment decision for him but that realization that everybody in Canada had at that time when these threats first started coming and the talk of tariffs

for real happened was like man the flags that are flying in Canada is I don't know if it's fair to call that a silver lining but the the pride in all things Canadian is it's remarkable and I would argue it's mostly it's Pan Canada you know my family comes from Quebec and this summer

while home I've never seen so many Canadian flags flying throughout the province I was in a supermarket looking for blueberries they were from the US and a woman next to me says oh so he he comes to these United Mexico like that those blueberries come

from the US but these ones come from Mexico try these. That's not a situation that would have happened a year ago. We have been hinting at trade and tariffs and we absolutely need to talk specifically a bit more about them as well. But before I get your thoughts on that, I want to do a shout out to anyone listening today on Spotify. Here we all are two blocks from the White House, but we'd love to hear what you think about it from wherever you're listening. So if you're so inclined, leave us a note in the comment section. kids these days people say we have so much more smartphones video games treats and busy schedules but more isn't always better because kids these days we also have more health challenges than ever before more mental health issues more need for life-saving surgeries and more complex needs chile has a plan to transform pediatric care for kids like me join us because kids these days we need you more than ever donate at chio

I've covered a lot of K-pop stories in my time as a Korean journalist, but this one is different. All I need is one person to believe in me. All I need is one person to think I have something. Because Katie Zito isn't a famous K-pop idol. That's what she wants to be. Can she do it in just three months at one of Seoul's grueling K-pop academies? From USG audio and novel, listen to Mission K-pop. Available now. Now, even if Trump's talk about Canada becoming the 51st state has gotten on a little quieter lately, talk about tariffs on Canadian goods has not. Prime Minister Carney has been in talks with President Trump multiple times since he was elected,

the most recent of those being in late October, when it was reported they were making progress until they weren't. Willie, you were traveling overseas with the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, when the latest round of negotiations with Canada went off the rails. Yeah, so Ontario put out this ad using Reagan's words from a radio address he did in the late 1980s, I believe, basically talking about how detrimental tariffs can be to an economy. At first, Trump's initial reaction was actually quite positive. He referenced it in a speech, I believe, at the Rose Garden. I don't think there are any roses there anymore. The cement garden where he referenced the ad and said, if I was Canada, I would have done the same thing. Fast forward just a few days, the Reagan Foundation put out a tweet basically saying that Ontario took Reagan's words out of context and that they were looking for potential legal avenues to pursue to try and get the ad down. Trump latched onto that and used it as a reason to cancel trade talks and negotiations with Canada.

That happened on a Friday night, I believe. It happened on a Thursday night because I had the audacity to go to bed. Yes. I had gone to bed at like 10 p.m. And the post came out around 10.45 and dingle, dingle, dingle, come on back to the office. That's right. So it was Thursday. I had just arrived in Jerusalem with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

I saw it as I was going to sleep at about midnight, 1 o'clock, woke up a few hours later. We were at press avail with Rubio. And I was able to ask him what the U.S. reaction was. to this. Mr. Secretary, if I could ask you a question just a little closer to home. Yesterday, President Trump terminated trade negotiations with Canada. Have you spoken with Foreign Minister Anand? What can Canada do to resume these? Well, I think what happened is one of the leaders in Canada was running ads in the United States on tariffs that took President Reagan's words out of context. Even the Reagan Foundation criticized them for it. But I have not spoken, I've been traveling

since yesterday. I have not spoken to the foreign ministers since then. And I think his response really illustrated just the fact that this was a decision taken by Donald Trump without talking to any of his team. He was surprised.

He seemed surprised. He had to refer to the tweet. It didn't seem like he had real insider knowledge to what this would mean. So there were a couple of things going on behind the scenes that I think also led to Donald Trump's anger in this moment. According to sources speaking with me as well as some of my colleagues in Ottawa, the Trump administration, particularly those close to the president, had taken issue with the way that Doug Ford does messaging, anti-tariff messaging, particularly when he's in U.S. media.

And apparently, according to sources, that has upset the team around the president, possibly the president himself. And that message was delivered to Canadian officials saying that Doug Ford is irking the people. So that sort of is sort of lingering underneath. and there was an incident that happened in Ottawa, and we reported about it. My colleagues in Ottawa got the heads up about it first, but I've spoken with several sources who saw this. So picture this, fancy gala in Ottawa, the Canadian American Business Council, all important people are there, the Canadian ambassador to the U.S. is there. Dominic LeBlanc who's leading trade talks, business leaders, there are some athletes there.

It's a big to-do in Ottawa. And at this event, there is Pete Hoekstra, who is the U.S. ambassador to Canada. Canada. He's sort of mingling in and around the crowd. And apparently he spots David Patterson, who is the trade rep for the province of Ontario. And according to multiple witnesses, Hoekstra approached Patterson and just sort of laid into him. I am told it was like a four-minute tirade of F-bom this, F-bomb that. He specifically called out Doug Ford, F-bomb Doug Ford, and it went on for four minutes or so. I'm told David Patterson sort of just stood there,

but it's another sort of example of how volatile things are and in the world of Donald Trump, this is how people operate. If I can just say, there is another way of looking at all of this, the relationship and the tensions between the two. And that is from many on the U.S. side,

it's like, well, well, yeah. Yeah, like, let's bring those jobs back here. Sort of like, you know, you ever see an athlete on some other team and you hate him because he's so good. But if he was on your team, you'd be cheering him on. We're not going to talk about the Dodgers. We're not going to talk about the Dodgers. We're going to leave the Dodgers and Jones around this. But there are many millions of Americans who will say, yeah, I applaud this.

And I do want those jobs. I'm willing to believe that the tariffs might bring some of those jobs back into this country. am I willing to accept that maybe some prices will go up in the short term, let's say. I'm willing to accept that. I went to a Trump rally in April. It was pegged to Trump's 100 days in office. You know, if you're going to speak to people in it lined up to see a Trump rally, you know their political perspective.

And people told me, yeah, I'm pro this. If prices go up for a while, so be it, if it brings down. jobs back. I do believe that the tariffs, yeah, it is going to be bumpy for a while, but we have to be patient. This mess has developed for a while, so it's not going to go away in 100 years. Are you willing to pay higher prices in the short term to get that in the long term? Yes, I am. Maybe it's going to be a little rough for us right now, but for my four grandkids and the generations after, I believe it will be good for them. And Michigan's an interesting place for that. 100%. Very, very crucial state in the next election, in

recent elections. We know the current trade talks have broken down on pause, whatever you want to describe it as. What are the next steps we're looking for when it comes to that? So the Canadians are hoping that the conversations will resume, but overall things have not necessarily been great. You know, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was still in office, it was very clear that there was tension in the personal relationship between the leaders. The Canadians have been trying to sort of reset that with Mark Carney to recast it saying, listen, we're hoping to have a more respectful, more positive tone. And yeah, perhaps you can point to the Oval Office meetings and say,

okay, you know, it certainly hasn't been as difficult as other meetings Donald Trump's had in the Oval Office. It certainly wasn't a Zelensky or anything like that. But what are the actual changes in trade policy? And guess what? There are more tariffs. There are higher tariffs. Initially, Canada was hoping to have some sort of broad trade and security agreement

to see tariffs lifted so Canada could go back to that normal relationship. That hope faded after the summer when there was blow-up after blow-up. Donald Trump cancelling trade talks in the summer because he was mad about the digital services tax. All of these kinds of things happened, and even though the tone might be slightly more respectful or broadly more respectful, there are still these tensions that are making life really difficult for Canadian workers and Canadian businesses. And hope of this broad trade, security, economic deal, that's gone. They're just hoping right now, I'm told by multiple sources in Canada, they're hoping that they can just keep the exemptions that exist right now for those broad tariffs,

the Kuzma compliant goods. If they can keep that in place heading into the renegotiation of Kuzma next year, they consider that a win. We started by talking about low bars. You know, if you had said this a year ago that the goal is to keep the exemption amid all of these other crazy tariffs, that is a pretty low bar. The Canadian, the current government would argue it's the best deal that any country in the world has at the moment. But I think one of the things that it's easy to lose sight of in Canada or it's so personal in Canada that it can be hard to accept or to realize that Canada is just one of 200 files that the White House is running at the moment.

And it doesn't actually take up as much bandwidth, as much brainpower within the White House as I think we would want it to. And, you know, this is the economic agenda that this administration has decided to pursue. We are not alone in facing the repercussions of that. And I would just say quickly back to, you mentioned the Oval meetings, you know, people who were in the room and Carney came down here. You and I were in the in and around the White House that day. For the first one, for the first one. For the first, yeah. That in the room, when the door is closed, it is clear that Trump respects Carney and likes him.

And Trump is asking questions. And Carney is a former governor of the Bank of England, former governor of the Bank of Canada, right? That is a very different dynamic than what we see outside that room. And I don't know what to make of it, whether to think, well, that bodes well, that bodes well, for Canada. Canada versus what you see in the things that Trump says and the actions that Trump takes outside. It's complicated to use that word again, right? I think one of the things that people on the Canadian side have concluded is that Trump needs to win, right? Or needs to be seen to win?

The question is, is there a path where both countries can win? That Carney gets to say, here's what we got, that Trump gets to say, here's what I got, and that's the resolution. Perhaps. That's the pitch that Canada has made. It's that, listen, this is in your best self-interest. This helps your economy. This helps you grow jobs. All of these tariffs hurt these American jobs. And so far, you know, one year post-election, it hasn't resonated in the way Canada had hoped. When Canada, Mexico and China, the three countries were first targets of Trump early this year. They sort of had the first wave of tariffs. Two countries decide to retaliate, Canada and China. Mexico does not. And when Donald Trump launches his larger tariff program where he starts targeting all kinds of American trading partners, the path that those trading partners pick is the same path that Mexico picked.

Former people who worked in the prime minister's office or people who worked under Justin Trudeau, they view that as Canada sort of got left standing holding a bag. and while the rest of the world caved, that is their position, and that if other countries had taken the same position as Canada, that perhaps there would be some pushback and the American economy would be feeling more consequences and it might help shape Donald Trump's decision-making.

But instead, Canada's standing out there and the only other country that's doing it is China, you never want to sort of be on the same island as China when it comes to trading practices, especially when dealing with the United States. And it just did not help Canada when the rest of the world decided to not take Canada's approach to it. That being said, I think Canada was definitely left out in the cold.

But what has Mexico gotten? Terrace. Right? Exactly. No, everyone got a. So I think that's. Oprah with the cars. Yeah, exactly.

You get a tariff. So I think that's one of the, you were talking about it earlier, Katie. The deal that Canada will eventually get is like going to be the least worst deal. That's a low. It's not going to be as good as it was before. And I think that's something that the country has to really grapple with. And I'm going to go back in time. 1988, there's this iconic debate between John Turner and Brian Mulroney during the 88 election.

And essentially, Turner accused Mulroney of betraying the country for the signing what was the precursor of NAFTA. The free trade agreement, which evolved into NAFTA, which evolved into Kuzma. Exactly, thank you. And essentially said by seeding these grounds, we're losing any leverage as a country. And I think that's what Carney has to try and find ways to get back, that leverage. But as we often say, we're a tenth of the size. How do you do that? All that said, we are now approaching July 2026, at which point,

Kuzma, U.S.MCA, there's a mandatory review. So all these will come back to the four in the coming months. So we've talked about the year past, the year ahead. What are we looking for from Donald Trump, Mark Carney, the Canada-U.S. relationship? I think that if we think the tariffs are really difficult now, that when that review starts, that it could intensify. That is my concern going forward. I will say that when the renegotiation of NAFTA was taking place during the first Trump administration. One of the things that Canadians did not want was this review, this sunset clause, because they were so afraid it would create an environment where the trading relationship would

depend on who is either in the prime minister's office or who is in the White House. And look where we are in the year 2025, approaching 2026, dealing with all kinds of erratic trade policies that have a massive impact on, you know, planning, on bottom lines, on staffing. on everything. And those first rounds of negotiations were pretty tough from what I recall. I can only imagine this round is going to be even uglier. But don't ever forget. I mean, the one thing, you know, the U.S. is a massive market full of people that love to spend money. And that is a very powerful force as these talks come to the fore because it's like everybody wants a piece of it. That's why so many countries have been willing to make deals with Donald Trump.

Well, that's it. That's why it can work to a certain extent because the world wants it. Yep. Okay, whatever actually happens, we'll be here at the CBC Washington Bureau, two blocks from the White House, keeping an eye on things from this side of the border for Canadians back home. Thanks, you too. Thank you. Thank you. And thanks to the front burner team for hosting these conversations. I'm going to suggest you follow them in your favorite podcast app as a way to return the favorite because Big Tent.

We'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.