Former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada Chrystia Freeland said Sunday on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” that Canadians were “furious” because President Donald Trump had challenged their sovereignty.
Zakaria said, “You’ve talked about, uh, you know, 100% tariffs on some things. You talked about a boycott of American goods, which would not be a formal legal thing, but you’re just urging Canadians to stop buying American goods when they go to grocery stores. Is it also are you also thinking in your proposals of doing something on oil? You know, we import a lot of oil from Canada.”
Freeland said, “I’m glad you mentioned the boycott because that is already happening across the country. Americans have to understand how hurt and, frankly, how furious Canadians are. Our sovereignty is being challenged. So, yeah, regular Canadians across the country are coming up with ways to stand for Canada, to fight for Canada, to defend Canada, but mostly to say to our American neighbors, guys, just cut it out. Just stop it. This is a terrible idea.”
Zakaria said, “You did negotiate with Trump so you do have a sense of him?”
Freeland said, “The pretexts for beating up on Canada are totally ludicrous. I think we all do know one thing about President Trump. The one thing he respects is strength and if he sees weakness, if he smells weakness, he pushes harder and harder and harder. So what you are going to see what America is going to see, what the world is going to see from Canada is total strength, total unity.”
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