Ontario’s take-no-prisoners Premier Doug Ford is threatening to ban U.S. alcohol in stores and cut power to American homes and businesses close to the border in his war on Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs.
“I’m a street fighter in politics,” Ford, wearing a blue MAGA-type hat reading “Canada is not for sale,” told Politico in an interview earlier this week. “If someone throws a punch at me, I’m going to hit him back twice as hard.”
Ford, 60, said he would like to work with Trump, but that doesn’t look likely now, even though there’s “no one that loves the U.S. up here in Canada more than I do.”
The leader of the center-right Ontario Progressive Conservative Party is talking tough to challenge Trump’s threats to slap stiff 25 percent tariffs on Canadian goods on the first of February. Ford has called for early elections in the province Friday, seeking a strengthened majority to “fight with Donald Trump to make sure we stop the tariffs.”
Beyond curtailing American liquor sales in Canada, Ford warned in December he could cut off electricity exports to Michigan, Minnesota and New York.
Being enemies, however, is not the way to go, cautioned Ford, who backed Trump for the presidency.
Canada and the U.S. should remain united, he wrote Monday in a Wall Street Journal op ed. The countries should be “focused on the threats that risk undermining our success,” he wrote. “A costly trade and tariff war between the U.S. and Canada would benefit only China,” the premier warned.
“The U.S. and Canada can be the richest, safest and most secure countries on the planet. Fortress Am-Can — a renewed strategic alliance between the U.S. and Canada — can bring economic growth, job creation and prosperity,” Ford added.
