“I have a lot of real estate on my ass. So, Donald Trump has plenty of room to kiss it,” said Ontario Premier Doug Ford in response to a question at a press briefing about the tariff conflict between Ottawa and Washington.
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This is not the first insult the premier of the Canadian province has directly thrown at the MAGA leader. In fact, that same morning, the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario had already lashed out at Trump saying he could “kiss his butt” during a radio interview.
After the failure of trade negotiations and the imposition of new U.S. tariffs on Canada – and the consequent response – last weekend, the premier of Canada’s most populous province urged his country to take a firm stance against the United States.
Thus, Trump is, according to Ford, a “dictator,” a “loser,” the “king of bankruptcies,” and could “go to hell”.
Asked by The Wall Street Journal how angry he was on a scale from one to 100, Ford answered “110.” A day later he adopted a more conciliatory tone after Trump’s mockery on social media, where the president called him the “less charismatic, intelligent, and generally unimpressive brother of the late great Rob Ford,” the former Toronto mayor whose term was marred by a substance abuse scandal. He also called him a “lackey” of Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney.
Also – in an event reminiscent of the American’s statements about the Gulf of Mexico – Trump threatened to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America. This is the body of water that separates the United States and Canada in the east, between the state of New York to the south and Ontario to the north.
However, the provincial premier’s stance is not immovable. Or at least, he himself recently implied so. “Things got a little tense, they got a little personal between the president and me,” Ford said on CNN, adding that he wants to “reach an agreement.”
Ford, one of the longest-serving provincial premiers, again injected his political volatility into the trade dispute. His unpredictability complicates the negotiating position of Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney. But it would also serve as a counterpoint, a sort of “bad cop” against whom the federal prime minister offers a more measured “good cop” approach.
“It’s unthinkable that Mark Carney would tell Donald Trump: ‘Kiss my ass,’” said Daniel Béland, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, consulted by the Journal. “But (Ford) can say it, and I think many Canadians like it, although others worry this could go too far.”
Eric Miller, president of the Rideau Potomac Strategy Group consultancy and former Canadian official, agreed with the above. “I don’t think the administration is used to being criticized or attacked directly, as Doug Ford has done,” he said.
Talks between the two countries ended without agreement. With this, Washington imposed 50% tariffs on Canadian products worth about 20 billion dollars. Carney promised “dollar-for-dollar” retaliation starting September 8.
Ford, on the matter, told CBS News that Washington “constantly changed the rules of the game” and summed up the White House’s treatment of his country in one phrase: “We are treated like communist China”.
A senior White House official, quoted by the Wall Street Journal, said Trump posted about Ford on Truth Social because he was annoyed that the Ontario politician attacked him in interviews.
Provincial premiers do not have a formal role in negotiations, but they do have political influence, and Ford has a lot at stake. Ontario is Canada’s most populous province and the center of its manufacturing industry, hit by tariffs on steel and automobiles, with hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk.
Ford has played a disruptive role since Trump took office. Last year he announced an export tax on electricity to the United States. However, he backed down when Trump threatened to double tariffs on Canadian metals.
In October last year, during tariff negotiations, the Ford government paid for an ad that aired during the World Series on U.S. stations showing a radio speech by Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs as measures that, in the long run, harm all American workers and consumers.
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Trump canceled the negotiations, Ford withdrew the campaign, and Carney apologized.
With the end of tariff talks last week, Ford kept an unusual silence. Privately he reportedly called auto industry executives and concluded the deal was “terrible”, according to what he told Carney.
Ford said he would not lift the ban on the sale of U.S. alcohol. “I can’t go to Dofasco – a Canadian steel mill – and look a worker in the eye, knowing that if we accept this deal, he would be out of a job in a couple of years,” he said, referring to the ArcelorMittal Dofasco plant in Hamilton.
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said: “We all know Premier Ford is a very peculiar person.”
Ford came to power in 2018. In 2025 he won his third consecutive majority government, capitalizing on discontent over tariffs and threats to turn Canada into the 51st state of the U.S.
His approval has since fallen, partly due to the purchase of a $20 million private jet which he gave up, and reached 21% in June, the lowest among provincial premiers. “When Ford wraps himself in the mantle of ‘Captain Canada’, he usually sees his ratings rise, because sometimes he has been the politician who can say out loud what people think,” said Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute.
Trade relations between the United States and Canada are strong. About 70% of Canadian exports go to the United States. But at the same time, Canada is the main customer of 26 U.S. states, and ranks among the top three trading partners of 45 of the 50.
Retaliatory tariffs planned by Ottawa currently target steel, dairy, appliances, farm machinery, electronics, pulp, and paper.
One of the levers is energy. Carney noted that Canada supplies the vast majority of U.S. imports of natural gas and electricity, and about 60% of crude oil imports. “I don’t think they want us to stop sending them that energy,” the premier said.
Ford said “an energy surcharge is on the table,” referring to the 25% levy he proposed in 2025 for electricity to Michigan, Minnesota, and New York. Canada is also the world’s leading supplier of potash, a key input for fertilizers.
“I’d love to see (Trump) drive cars without oil. I’d love to see him grow fruits and vegetables without potash,” Ford said.
Canadian purchasing power is another tool. The ban on the sale of U.S. alcohol in liquor stores, adopted by most provinces, sank U.S. wine exports to its neighbor by 78% year-on-year, a loss of 357 million dollars, according to the U.S. Wine Institute.
The tourism boycott, with 800,000 fewer trips in April compared to 2024, cost about 3.3 billion dollars last year.
Also, the political calendar favors Canada. The 50% tariffs could cut Canadian GDP by between 0.3% and 0.6%, but about 76% of Canadians support Ottawa’s tough stance. The U.S. midterm legislative elections are approaching with the economy as one of the central issues, and two of the most contested Senate races are in Michigan and Maine, states that depend on trade with Canada.
Carney warned that those workers “absolutely depend on Canada, their largest consumer.” Ford, for his part, did not rule out retaliation against Republican states to “make sure the U.S. economy suffers the consequences”.
