Veteran Canadian Parliamentarian Charlie Angus says the Canadian side of the red-hot tariff tiff is prepared to launch a “bench-clearing brawl” against a “two-bit Putin” Donald Trump and the United States — if the trade war continues to escalate.
Angus hurled his insults not just at President Trump, but also at members of Trump’s economic team, calling out Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trump Trade Advisor Peter Navarro by name.
[The tariff back-and-forth has been challenging to track, but the Trump administration has imposed and/or promised major tariffs on most Canadian goods, though it has relented a bit on its threats, delaying until April 2 tariffs on some goods covered by the current USMCA trade agreement that Trump signed during his first term. Trump has also angered Canadians by suggesting that the sovereign nation become the 51st state, mockingly referring to its prime minister as a governor. In a strong response Canada announced that “Effective March 13, 2025, the Government of Canada is imposing 25 per cent tariffs on $29.8 billion in products imported from the United States (U.S.).”]
Taking aim at Lutnick, Angus expressed a repugnance toward the U.S. attitude that Canada hadn’t shown sufficient “gratitude” to the United States.
Canadian MP Charlie Angus: Was it Mr. Lutnick—the Baghdad Bob of trade negotiations for the United States—who said that Canada wasn’t showing that we were grateful?
Are you kidding me? You’ve threatened our nation, and now you’re saying we’re not being grateful? pic.twitter.com/UmndNZgVIU
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 17, 2025
“Are you [expletive] kidding me?” Angus asked in response during a MeidasTouch interview, also slamming Lutnick for comparing Canada to Ukraine. (That’s when Angus’s response moved to address Trump himself, as he said “in Canada right now, we’re thinking we’ll be Ukraine any day if Donald Trump’s a two-bit Putin.”)
[NOTE: Along with imperial ambitions, one of the reasons often cited for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is its wealth of natural resources.]
With Trump also trying to secure the rights to Ukraine’s rare earths and precious metals (titanium, lithium, uranium, copper, lead, zinc, silver, nickel, cobalt and manganese), Angus — notably the author of a book about Canadian mining subtitled “Birth of a Mining Superpower” — sees Canada’s similarities to Ukraine as the U.S. calculates value. Knowledge of Canada’s natural resource wealth and a sense of patriotism and autonomy underscores his resistance to what he characterizes as bullying by the U.S.
[It’s not just energy trade at issue: With its gloves removed for the fight, as Angus indicated, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario banned its members from ordering American alcohol, halting what is estimated to be $1 billion business in American liquor annually.]
Angus used a deliberately mocking tone to characterize Navarro, who he portrayed as meekly asking Canada to turn down the temperature on the rift between the North American neighbors. “Hey Canada, stop taking the gloves off and hitting us,” Angus said, affecting a timid voice.
“Great,” Angus replied rhetorically to Navarro. “You don’t want us to hit you, then stop this idiocy. Because if you’re freaked out now, Pete…wait until the bench-clearing brawl moment where we all go over the boards.”
In a February USA TODAY editorial about what he characterizes as a detrimental American trade imbalance in the aluminum industry, Navarro wrote that “it’s not just strategic competitors like China and Russia that have exploited exemptions and loopholes and flooded the U.S. aluminum market. Nations considered U.S. allies also have been a big part of the problem.”