TORONTO: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday that US President Donald Trump’s auto tariffs are a “direct attack” on his country and that the trade war is hurting Americans, noting that American consumer confidence is at a multi-year low.
Trump said earlier Wednesday that he was placing 25 percent tariffs on auto imports and, to underscore his intention, he stated “This is permanent.”
“This is a very direct attack,” Carney responded. “We will defend our workers. We will defend our companies. We will defend our country.”
Carney said he needs to see the details of Trump’s executive order before taking retaliatory measures. He called it unjustified and said he will leave the election campaign to go to Ottawa on Thursday to chair his special Cabinet committee on US relations.
Carney earlier announced a CA$2 billion ($1.4 billion) “strategic response fund” that will protect Canadian auto jobs affected by Trump’s tariffs.
Autos are Canada’s second largest export, and Carney noted it employs 125,000 Canadians directly and almost another 500,000 in related industries.
“Canada will be there for auto workers,” he said.
Trump previously granted a one-month exemption on his stiff new tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada for US automakers.
The president has plunged the US into a global trade war — all while on-again, off-again new levies continue to escalate uncertainty.
The Conference Board reported Tuesday that its USconsumer confidence index fell 7.2 points in March to 92.9, the fourth straight monthly decline and its lowest reading since January of 2021.
“His trade war is hurting American consumers and workers and it will hurt more. I see that American consumer confidence is at a multi-year low,” Carney said earlier while campaigning in Windsor, Ontario ahead of Canada’s April 28 election.
The tax hike on auto imports starting in April means automakers could face higher costs and lower sales.
Trump previously 25 percent tariffs on Canada’s steel and aluminum and is threatening sweeping tariffs on all Canadian products — as well as all of America’s trading partners — on April 2.
“He wants to break us so America can own us,” Carney said. “And it will never ever happen because we just don’t look out for ourselves we look out for each other.”
Carney, former two-time central banker, made the earlier comments while campaigning against the backdrop of the Ambassador Bridge, which is considered the busiest US-Canadian border crossing, carrying 25 percent of all trade between the two countries. It plays an especially important role in auto manufacturing.
Carney said the bridge carries $140 billion Canadian dollars ($98 billion) in goods every year and CA$400 million ($281 million) per day.
“Now those numbers and the jobs and the paychecks that depend on that are in question,” Carney said. “The relationship between Canada and the United States has changed. We did not change it.”
In the auto sector, parts can go back and forth across the Canada-US border several times before being fully assembled in Ontario or Michigan.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said, whose province has the bulk of Canada’s auto industry, Ford said auto plants on both sides the border will shut simultaneously if the tariffs go ahead.
“President is calling it Liberation Day. I call it Termination Day for American workers. I know President Trump likes tell people ‘Your fired!” I didn’t think he meant US auto workers when he said it,” Ford said.
Trump has declared a trade war on his northern neighbor and continues to call for Canada to become the 51st state, a position that has infuriated Canadians.
Canadians booed Trump repeatedly at a Carney election rally in Kitchener, Ontario.
The new prime minister, sworn in March 14, still hasn’t had a phone call with Trump. It is unusual for a US president and Canadian prime minister to go so long without talking after a new leader takes office.
“It would be appropriate that the president and I speak given the action that he has taken. I’m sure that will happen soon,” Carney said.
Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said the tariffs will damage American auto workers just as they will damage Canadian auto workers.
“The message to President Trump should be to knock it off,” Poilievre said. “He’s changed his mind before. He’s done this twice, puts them on, takes them off. We can suspect that may well happen again.”
Canadian Prime Minister Carney calls Trump’s auto tariffs a ‘direct attack’ on his country
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Canadian Prime Minister Carney calls Trump’s auto tariffs a ‘direct attack’ on his country
- Autos are Canada’s second largest export, and Carney noted it employs 125,000 Canadians directly and almost another 500,000 in related industries
- The tax hike on auto imports starting in April means automakers could face higher costs and lower sales
Tesla chargers torched in suspected arson in France: police
- There have been a number of anti-Telsa actions in the US and Europe since Elon Musk became Trump’s adviser and backed European far-right parties
SAINT-ÉTIENNE, France: Twelve Tesla electric superchargers were targeted in an arson attack in the carpark of a supermarket in central France, a police source told AFP on Sunday.
The fire broke out overnight Wednesday to Thursday in the town of St-Chamond in the Loire department, the source said, confirming a report in the regional newspaper Le Progres.
Two of the chargers, each worth tens of thousands of euros, were completely destroyed, while the others were damaged.
“Anti-Tesla campaign born to burn” was found painted in white on the car park floor.
The police source said it was “the first act targeting the business of billionaire American Elon Musk” in the Loire.
An investigation for “damage and destruction by fire” has been opened but no arrests had been made, the source added.
There have been a number of anti-Telsa actions in Europe since Musk became US President Donald Trump’s adviser and backed European far-right parties.
Earlier this month, a dozen Teslas were torched in an attack on a dealership near the southern city of Toulouse, leaving eight vehicles burnt out.
Another four cars were badly damaged.
A recent spate of attacks on Tesla property in the United States have been described by Attorney General Pam Bondi as “nothing short of domestic terrorism.”
EU open to ‘compromise’ on US tariffs, says Scholz
- Trump has announced sweeping tariffs on the United States’ allies and adversaries, including a 25-percent levy on auto imports starting next week
BERLIN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday said the EU would respond firmly to tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump but stressed the bloc was also open to compromise.
“It is clear that we, as the European Union... will react clearly and decisively to the United States’ tariff policy,” Scholz said ahead of the opening of a trade fair in Hanover.
But the bloc was “always and at all times firmly prepared to work for compromise and cooperation,” he said.
“I say to the US: Europe’s goal remains cooperation. But if the US leaves us no choice, as with the tariffs on steel and aluminum, we will respond as a united European Union,” Scholz said.
Trump has announced sweeping tariffs on the United States’ allies and adversaries, including a 25-percent levy on auto imports starting next week.
A 25-percent US tariff on steel and aluminum from around the world came into effect in mid-March, with EU countermeasures set to begin in April.
As a major car manufacturer and exporter, Germany could be hit particularly hard by the auto tariffs and they were the subject of a visit to Washington by Finance Minister Joerg Kukies last week.
Germany has vowed a tough response to the tariffs, with a government spokesman insisting that “nothing is off the table.”
However, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni struck a more conciliatory tone on Saturday, calling for a “reasoned” approach to the escalating dispute.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen also previously said she “deeply” regretted the US auto tariffs and the EU would “continue to seek negotiated solutions.”
Scholz on Sunday also insisted Canada was an independent country, responding to repeated comments by Trump that it should become the 51st US state.
“Canada is a proud, independent nation, Canada has friends all over the world and especially here in Germany and Europe,” he said at the Hanover trade fair.
Canada is a special guest at the event, which officially opens on Monday.
Beachcomber in France hunts fragments of migrant lives
- The item is one of many objects migrants leave behind when they board one of the small boats they hope will carry them to the English coast
GRAVELINES, France: The sand-covered notes outlining a migrant’s travel plan to a better life read like an itinerary of hope: from Ethiopia to Sudan, Libya, Italy, on to France and finally, England.
The document had traveled thousands of kilometers by the time it was picked up on a beach in Gravelines on France’s North Sea coast by a Belgian who likes to scour the beach in search of interesting things to collect.
Aaron Fabrice de Kisangani, 27, who calls himself a “beachcomber” and a “citizen scientist,” carefully unfolded the piece of paper that was soaked, dirty and covered in sand fleas, hoping for clues to the owner’s life.
The item is one of many objects migrants leave behind when they board one of the small boats they hope will carry them to the English coast. Sometimes they lose things in the hurry, and sometimes they throw them away deliberately, to travel light.
This is how shoes, clothes, bags and documents belonging to migrants end up strewn on northern French beaches, along with things left by fishermen and visitors.
Over the past two decades, Fabrice de Kisangani has made some unusual finds, including exotic plant seeds and shark teeth. He never used to pay attention to objects left by migrants, until about a year ago.
“I started to think, why don’t I take them, because otherwise they will be lost,” he told AFP.
The written notes he found probably belonged to an Ethiopian woman called Rose I., at least that is the name scribbled at the top of the page.
Rose meticulously listed cities, journey times and means of transport, drawing arrows between each entry.
The itinerary starts with “A.A.” for Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Eight hundred kilometers (500 miles) and 17 hours by car later comes Metema, on the Sudanese border. “Ten minutes on foot,” Rose predicted, would take her to Gallabat on the other side.
Then on to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, followed by thousands of kilometers across sand, marked simply as “desert,” to Tripoli, in Libya.
Next came the voyage across the sea to Italy, followed by a train journey to France. And then, at last, the final destination: “UK.”
Fabrice de Kisangani found many other fragments of exile life during his morning search: a summons for a March 18 expulsion hearing for an Albanian in detention, or tickets from the Romanian capital Bucharest by plane to Paris, and then by train to Dunkerque in northern France.
These objects could help “humanize those people again,” because they tell “their story,” said Fabrice de Kisangani.
“I want to show the problem from another angle, as a beachcomber,” he said, admitting however that he has not worked out yet what exactly to do with the objects.
But in the meantime, the finds taught him “a lot” about the migrants, “about how they travel and how fast,” the beachcomber said, adding he often does research to find out more about their home countries and “why they are fleeing to the UK.”
Walking back to his car, Fabrice de Kisangani saw a scene playing out in the distance that has become commonplace around here: dozens of migrants emerging from the dunes and running toward a boat waiting in the water. At first they were stopped by police but, in another attempt a few minutes later, most managed to climb aboard.
A child could be heard crying. A man, one of three members of a family who didn’t make it, urged his mother to climb back off the boat, without success.
Such existential scenes, illustrating the undertaking’s fragility, are never documented in the objects jettisoned on the beach. The final pieces of the puzzle remain elusive.
Did Rose, the travel plan author, ever make it to England? Did she stick to her itinerary?
On this, the notes are silent.
US will not ‘get’ Greenland, island’s new prime minister says
- "We don’t belong to anyone else. We decide our own future,” Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a Facebook post
- US President Trump has said he wants to make Greenland a US territory to protect it from Russia and China
COPENHAGEN, Denmark: Greenland will decide its own future and the autonomous Danish territory will not become part of the United States, its new prime minister said on Sunday, responding to Donald Trump’s latest comments about wanting the resource-rich island.
“President Trump says the United States ‘will get Greenland.’ Let me be clear: The United States will not get Greenland. We don’t belong to anyone else. We decide our own future,” Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a Facebook post.
“We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100 percent,” Trump said on Sunday in an interview with NBC News.
This latest exchange culminates a week of heightened tensions between the United States, Denmark, and Greenland, marked by Vice President JD Vance’s visit to a US military base on the vast Arctic island.
Danish diplomacy on Saturday criticized Vance’s “tone,” after he said Denmark “has not done a good job by the people of Greenland.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen will be in Greenland from Wednesday to Friday to “strengthen unity” between the kingdom and its Arctic territory.
Four of the five parties represented in the Greenlandic Parliament reached an agreement on Friday to form a coalition government.
Greenland’s main parties all want independence, but they disagree on the roadmap. American pressure convinced them to form a coalition as quickly as possible with only the Naleraq party, which advocates rapid independence, declining to join.
Trump says he’s considering ways to serve a third term as president
- US presidents are limited to two four-year terms, but Trump suggested that Americans would go along with a third term because of his popularity
- He falsely claimed to have “the highest poll numbers of any Republican for the last 100 year,” a record held by George W. Bush
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: President Donald Trump said Sunday that “I’m not joking” about trying to serve a third term, the clearest indication he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends in early 2029.
“There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago, his private club.
He also said “it is far too early to think about it.”
The 22nd Amendment, added to the Constitution in 1951 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected four times in a row, says “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
Any attempt to remain in office would be legally suspect and it is unclear how seriously he might pursue the idea. The comments nonetheless were an extraordinary reflection of the desire to maintain power by a president who had violated democratic traditions four years ago when he tried to overturn the election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Trump if one potential avenue to a third term was having Vice President JD Vance run for the top job and “then pass the baton to you.”
“Well, that’s one,” Trump responded. “But there are others too. There are others.”
“Can you tell me another?” Welker asked.
“No,” Trump replied.
Vance’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
Derek Muller, a professor of election law at Notre Dame, noted that the 12th Amendment, which was ratified in 1804, says “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the United States.”
Muller said that indicates that if Trump is not eligible to run for president again because of the 22nd Amendment, he is not eligible to run for vice president, either.
“I don’t think there’s any ‘one weird trick’ to getting around presidential term limits,” Muller said.
In addition, pursuing a third term would require extraordinary acquiescence by federal and state officials, not to mention the courts and voters themselves.
He suggested that Trump is talking about a third term for political reasons to “show as much strength as possible.”
“A lame-duck president like Donald Trump has every incentive in the world to make it seem like he’s not a lame duck,” he said.
Trump, who would be 82 at the end of his second term, was asked whether he would want to keep serving in “the toughest job in the country” at that point.
“Well, I like working,” the president said.
He suggested that Americans would go along with a third term because of his popularity. He falsely claimed to have “the highest poll numbers of any Republican for the last 100 years.”
Gallup data shows President George W. Bush reaching a 90 percent approval rating after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. His father, President George H.W. Bush, hit 89 percent following the Gulf War in 1991.
Trump has maxed out at 47 percent in Gallup data during his second term, despite claiming to be “in the high 70s in many polls, in the real polls.”
Trump has mused before about serving longer than two terms before, generally with jokes to friendly audiences.
“Am I allowed to run again?” he said during a House Republican retreat in January.
Representatives for the congressional leadership — House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York — did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the AP.
