Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney mimicked Donald Trump’s hand gestures at a Friday speech in Ottawa, joking that a clean-energy deal was the “functional equivalent of 18 Hoover Dams.” The moment marks a sharper tone as US-Canada trade talks remain stalled.
Carney’s approach had largely been conciliatory despite Trump’s repeated insults and the escalating trade dispute. Canada introduced retaliatory tariffs after talks collapsed in August. More recently, Carney told the Trump administration to stop posting memes after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth mocked Canada’s youth cadet program. Carney also made pointed remarks to the European Parliament after the EU invited Canada to become its first “associate member”; Trump responded with a fresh tariff threat.
Carleton University professor Eric Van Rythoven said the public mockery could signal colder relations, while St. Francis Xavier University’s Asa McKercher said the two leaders could still patch things up. A Leger poll found 41% of Canadians now consider the US an enemy country, up 15 points from June 2025; 64% said their opinion would change if Trump were no longer in office.