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Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on Thursday that he hopes Republicans in the U.S. lose both the House and Senate in the upcoming midterm elections, suggesting that voters should punish President Donald Trump for his moves to escalate the ongoing trade war with Canada.
“Hopefully, he’s going to lose the Senate. He’s going to lose Congress. I hope so, and hold him accountable,” Ford said.
“But we’ll see how that goes. We aren’t going to interfere in the U.S. election,” he continued.
Ford has become one of Trump’s most outspoken critics in Canada, accusing the president of attempting to move Ontario’s businesses and jobs across the border to the U.S.
CANADIAN PM TELLS TRUMP TO ‘STOP TRYING TO BE TOUGH’ IN TRADE FIGHT
“He’s not reliable at all,” Ford said. “He could make a deal today and then change his mind. And we’ve seen that over and over again.”
Ford said he still believes Trump would like to reach a deal before the midterms and that Canada should return to the negotiation table as soon as possible.
“I truly believe President Trump wants a deal before the midterms,” Ford said. “I could be wrong, but I think it’s best that we sit down and get a deal.”
Ford’s comments come just days after the U.S. escalated the trade dispute by banning some Canadian dairy products and motorcycles as well most alcoholic beverages after Canada’s retaliatory tariffs took effect on about $20 billion in U.S. goods.
Trump also took efforts to remove Canadian products from large, long-term U.S. government contracts.
Last year, Trump abruptly ended trade talks with Canada after the Ontario government broadcast an anti-tariff TV ad in the U.S., using quotes from former Republican President Ronald Reagan’s criticism of tariffs.
Trump and Ford have repeatedly exchanged personal jabs over the trade war.
NEW YORK GOV HOCHUL REJECTS TRUMP’S ‘LAKE AMERICA’ RENAMING WITH BLUNT MESSAGE
Ford mocked Trump for keeping a portrait of Reagan near his desk while pushing for tariffs the former president had opposed, telling The Associated Press that Reagan would be “throwing up on him from the picture if he knew what was going on.”
Trump, meanwhile, has criticized Ford as “the less charismatic, intelligent, and overall unimpressive brother of the late, great, Rob Ford.”
The U.S. president further escalated tensions with Canada when he signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” a rebranding that Canada does not recognize.
Canada, other international bodies and U.S. states are not forced to follow the renaming, but the order adds to the ongoing tensions between the two countries.
Ford said on Thursday that Trump had unintentionally strengthened Canada by forcing it to cut its dependence on the U.S.
“The only two good things Donald Trump has ever done for Canada” were that “he woke us up” and “he united the country like I’ve never seen before,” Ford said.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney suggested on Thursday that his country may hold off on further retaliation against Trump’s latest trade measures, describing them as “relatively modest” compared to earlier U.S. moves.
He said his government was still studying the U.S. measures and acknowledged they could have significant consequences for companies and industries, but he said that some of the new U.S. tariffs replaced others that the Trump administration had removed.
“We also recognize that, in the context of other things that the U.S. administration has done … that these are relatively modest measures,” Carney said at a cabinet retreat in Banff, Alberta.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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