A day after stating that Canadians were “pissed off” with U.S. President Donald Trump’s ongoing annexation and tariff threats, B.C. Premier David Eby took the message to an American audience.
Eby appeared on ABC News Live Today Friday morning, where anchor Morgan Norwood asked for his response to Trump’s repeated statements about making Canada the 51st state.
“This is the most offensive and ironically unifying message the president has delivered to Canadians. We’re pissed off. We’re more united than we have ever been. It is a grievous insult to us,” Eby said.
“We know the president in back rooms with Canadian officials has said he wants to redraw the border — completely unacceptable. If this president wants to annex Canada, he should save his breath to cool his soup, it is never going to happen.”
The interview followed B.C.’s revelation it would pass legislation allowing the province to toll trucks transiting B.C. between Alaska and the continental U.S., something Eby told ABC he’d prefer not to do but is meant to pressure Republicans who have Trump’s ear.
It also came on the heels of Trump initiating another 30-day pause on some of his tariffs on Canadian goods.
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Much of the six-minute segment saw Eby speaking directly to U.S. businesses and consumers to hammer home the message that Trump’s tariffs will hit them in the pocketbook.
Eby said B.C. won’t back down from its response until Trump withdraws his tariff threat, and that his continued see-sawing on the matter was equally damaging to both sides.
“It’s total chaos, it’s one day to the next. One day it’s 25 per cent on everything, the next day it’s only items under the trade agreement, there are separate tariffs on steel and aluminum, and now this talk of reciprocal tariffs,” Eby said.
“It doesn’t even matter if the tariffs are put on. The uncertainty for a Canadian company is the same as it will be for an American company: What is the cost of our electricity going to be? What is the cost of our natural gas and aluminum and wood going to be?”
Eby pointed to the U.S. “Big Three” automakers, which are highly integrated across the border, who have warned their business will be devastated by tariffs.
Trump has implemented a one-month carve out on those tariffs.
But Eby said even with that measure, U.S. automakers are still being hit by the other tariffs on steel and aluminum Trump has imposed.
“Why it would be that you would take a manufacturer in the United States that uses aluminum made in British Columbia and say you have to pay 25 per cent more for that aluminum, but everybody else in the world doesn’t have to pay that 25 per cent?” he said.
“All of a sudden you are less competitive.”
Eby went on to tell the U.S. audience that Canadians don’t want a fight with the U.S., and have deep historical ties — noting his own family emigrated from Pennsylvania and that he still has nieces in the U.S.
But he said Canadians now feel the need to be less reliant on and integrated with the U.S, not more.
“We are doing all we can to detach from the U.S., to move to other markets, to get away from the whims of one person in the White House,” Eby said.
“The fact we are doing all we can to get away from the United States right now is absolutely awful.”
