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America 'not at war' with Canada, insists U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (www.cbc.ca)

submitted 4 days ago by CapuccinoCoretto@lemmy.world to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted his country is "not at war" with Canada, then proceeded to mock the threat Canada could pose to his country with "submarines from the Edmonton mall."

The secretary also suggested Prime Minister Mark Carney was to blame for the current "political shouting match" between the two countries because keeping the fight alive is good for his poll numbers.

Bessent made the remarks Monday in an interview with the U.S. cable news network CNBC, where he was asked if his country is now in a trade war with Canada.

"Well, I don't think you can be in a tit for tat with someone that's 13 times larger than you are," he said.

"I mean we're not at war with Canada. How are we going to be at war with Canada? What, are they going to take their two submarines from the Edmonton mall and sic them on us?"

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[-] Reannlegge@lemmy.ca 26 points 4 days ago

We should just cut off all the electricity we send down there, all the gas we send down there (I know Smith will have a hissy fit but oh well), we should stop sending all the lumber down there, we should stop sending all the metal down there, we should stop sending all the uranium down there, and just to top it off we should stop sending all the potash down there and see how long until they starve.

[-] ragepaw@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 days ago

We should send her down there and never let her come back

[-] SomethingWentWrong@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago

Unpopular opinion but that would be disproportionate escalation.

Alberta sends crude oil south and then refined gasoline, jet fuel is sent north. We have a mutual dependency on each other. Causing too much pain for them or ourselves will not be good. A fuel crisis could be an excuse for Trump to declare a National Emergency with justification for even more escalation.

The rules of a trade war are to match their import tariffs with our import tariffs. Canada is targeting our counter tariffs at USA products mainly coming from purple/red states:

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2026/08/list-of-products-from-the-united-states-subject-to-counter-tariffs-effective-september-8-2026.html