‘Oh Canada!’ Angry Trump reignites fight with fresh threat to nation

President Donald Trump launched a fresh attack on Canada early Thursday, hitting out at the sovereign nation’s plan to recognize Palestine as a state and threatening to halt negotiations on a trade deal over it.

“Wow!” Trump wrote in a social media post on Truth Social. “Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine. That will make it very hard for us to make a trade deal with them. Oh Canada!!!”

Canada’s announcement was similar to recent moves from France and the UK, which also announced plans to recognize Palestinian statehood amid Israel’s ongoing siege and aid blockade on the Gaza Strip.

Trump has imposed an Aug. 1 deadline for countries to reach a trade agreement with the United States. In the absence of an agreement, countries would be imposed with tariffs as high as 50%, with Canada facing a 35% tariff should an agreement not be reached.

Much like France’s and the UK’s, Canada’s announcement was met with fierce pushback from Israeli officials, with that country's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – wanted for alleged war crimes by the United Nations – saying the decision “rewards Hamas’ monstrous terrorism and punishes its victims.”

Calls have grown for Israel to reign in its siege on Gaza in recent months as the Palestinian death toll continues to rise, as do famine conditions brought on largely by Israel’s aid blockade.

Since Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, around 17,500 of them children, with 111,588 injured. The true death toll, however, could have been as high as 186,000 in July of 2024, according to an analysis by the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet. Famine has also worsened in recent weeks, with the Palestinian Ministry of Health reporting 101 deaths from malnutrition since the conflict started, including 80 children.