Dismay after Trump claims US ally is the world's 'worst country': ‘Good grief’

President Donald Trump sparked an angry backlash on Monday after calling Canada “one of the worst countries in the entire world” as he complained about stalled negotiations with the longtime U.S. ally.

“They have been one of the worst countries in the entire world,” Trump told reporters while taking questions in the Oval Office. “We get along with China, we get along with people, we make good deals, but Canada has been really very difficult to deal with.”

The remark quickly drew outrage online.

“Despite all of Trump’s b------- like this, Americans still like Canada a helluva lot more than they like him,” attorney and prominent Trump critic George Conway wrote on social media, pointing to a YouGov poll on Americans’ attitudes toward Canada.

Others piled on.

“This is Trump admitting that Canada has stood up to him,” author Steve Saideman, a political scientist at Ottawa’s Carleton University, wrote on Bluesky.

Writer Lawrence Herzog asked on Bluesky, “How much longer do Canadians have to endure bullying and abuse from this person?”

The War Monitor X account pointed to Trump’s treatment of two U.S. rivals, writing, “Meanwhile, Russia and China literally got red carpet treatment.”

Canadian health researcher Tara M. offered a shorter response for her Bluesky followers: “Seriously?”

“Of course he thinks that,” concluded politics writer Nick Field in an X post, “they’re one of the few countries that refuses to bribe him.”