US politics live: ‘Confused’: Trump’s Canada move panned
A nasty trade war is brewing between two former allies, with Canada accusing Trump of setting it up for economic failure so it can be annexed.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has accused Donald Trump of wanting to invade Canada, after harsh new tariff have been introduced.
Jimmy Kimmel said the tariffs were akin to a shake-down on America’s long-time ally.
And as tensions heat up between the US and Canada, so too do relations between America and Ukraine.
Trump’s aggression towards Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky at the Oval Office last week appears to have backfired, giving the Ukrainian leader a massive boost in popularity.
It comes a day after the Trump administration was caught holding secret talks between two of the Ukrainian president’s political rivals. Both have denied being involved in a plot to oust Zelensky.
Russia, no doubt emboldened by the deteriorating relationship between both nations, has launched a bombardment of a city in the the eastern Donetsk region hours after Donald Trump defended Vladimir Putin.
Read below for the latest updates.
‘Confused’: Trump’s Canada move panned
As Trump went ahead with his threats of implementing tariffs on America’s neighbours — Mexico and Canada — this week, television host Jimmy Kimmel was less than impressed.
“Can you believe we’re shaking down Canada?” Kimmel said on Late Night. “They must be so confused. We had such a good relationship.
“It’s like we suddenly got hooked on meth, and we went to the apartment upstairs, like, ‘You got any money?!’” he joked.
Trudeau told reporters on Thursday that a trade war between the two allies was likely.
A White House official said about 62 per cent of imports from Canada may still face tariffs.
Canadians have already hit back, with some stores pulling American-made liquor from their shelves. Canadian shoppers are also “boycotting” American goods, with some grocery chains marking their own brands with maple leaves to help shoppers decide.
Canadian PM’s wild Trump invasion claim
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused his US counterpart on Tuesday of trying to soften up his nation for a future invasion.
The wild claims came as President Trump’s controversial tariffs against Canada came into effect that day.
“The excuse that he’s giving for these tariffs today of fentanyl is completely bogus, completely unjustified, completely false,” Mr Trudeau said at a news conference in Ottawa.
“What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us”.
The comments are an escalation in both nations’ previously friendly relations.
At the end of last year, Mr Trump referred to Mr Trudeau as a “governor” and said that Canada was “the 51st state” of America.
The US and Canada leader had a heated exchange on Wednesday, where Mr Trump was reported using profane language more than once.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he then had a “colourful” conversation with Trump about tariffs on Thursday.
Trump’s Zelensky attack backfires
President Trump’s heated attack on Zelensky last week appears to have had the opposite effect desired – the Ukrainian leader is now more popular than ever.
British pollster Survation found this week that his ratings are at 44 per cent, making him well and truly the most highly regarded politician in Ukraine.
The same polling service found that Petro Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko — the two politicians Trump officials had made secret overtures to — have only got 10 per cent and 5.4 per cent approval ratings respectively.
The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) releases regular data on their nation’s leader and also found Zelenksy’s popularity had gone up in the wake of the Trump clash.
Its most recent survey, released on Friday local time, showed the Ukrainian president’s higher than they’ve been in 12 months.
Mr Zelensky’s approval ratings hit a high of 90 per cent in May 2022 when the war had just started, but have steadily declined since then.
But this now sits at 67 per cent of Ukrainians — a 12-month high.
It’s a bit of a slap in the face for Mr Trump, who has labelled Mr Zelenksy a dictator, repeating lies from the Kremlin.
He called Zelensky a “dictator without elections” who had done “a terrible job” and had a “4% poll rating”.
On Thursday, Trump’s ally Elon Musk tweeted: “Ukraine needs to hold an election. Zelensky would lose by a landslide.”
Civil servant sackings continue
Civil servant employees continue to be sacked under the new DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) regime eviscerating the USA’s government workforce, headed by billionaire and now Trump right hand man Elon Musk.
Donald Trump pushed on with his plan to dismantle the Department of Education this week.
Its secretary, Linda McMahon, wrote in a staff email that her “final mission” was to dissolve the agency.
The most recent victim was the head of a taskforce combatting drugs and organised crime who described his firing as a “shock”. The head of a key U.S. Justice Department task force that combats drugs and organised crime was fired on Friday, amid a move by President Donald Trump’s administration to purge or sideline career officials.
Adam Cohen, the director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, said on LinkedIn he had been sacked on Wednesday by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Cohen had just written a draft, alongside Blanche, outlining their taskforce’s new remit to combat illegal immigration. They called the taskforce “Operation Take Back America”.
It comes as Democrats are hopeful that the unpopularity towards Musk and his mass sackings might see them have a chance at winning the next election.
“It’s an easy story: Elon Musk and the billionaires have taken over government to steal from the American people to enrich themselves,” Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a Democrat, told The New York Times. “That’s the message. It’s true, it’s persuasive, and if we repeat it over and over again, they won’t win.”
Russia intensifies Ukraine attacks as Trump pulls plug on weapons
Putin is making the most of the strained relations between Ukraine and the US, launching a sustained attack in Ukraine just hours after Trump made positive comments about the Russian dictator and pulled the plug in supplying weapons.
Three ballistic missiles hit the city centre of Dobropillia on Saturday local time, killing 11 civilians and injuring another 30, including children.
It came just hours after Donald Trump said the Kremlin leader was “doing what anybody would do”.
The USA has stopped intelligence sharing and its supply of weapons to Ukraine - making the country’s alarm system against missiles less effective.
European leaders have hinted at the terrible repercussions Mr Trump’s policy is having on Ukraine.
The Polish prime minister Donald Tusk of the attack “This is what happens when someone appeases barbarians”.
Ukrainian politicians deny Trump plot to oust Zelensky from power
It comes as yesterday, it was confirmed that two of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s key political rivals had secret talks with Donald Trump’s team.
Rumours about Washington’s alleged interference in Ukraine had swirled following a Politico report alleging behind-the-scenes efforts to remove Zelensky from office before a peace deal with Russia is finalised.
Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s former president, acknowledged that his team has been working with US partners but insisted their efforts were “public and transparent” and focused on securing bipartisan support for Ukraine.
Poroshenko made it clear he is “categorically against holding elections during the war”, arguing that a presidential vote should only happen after a ceasefire and a peace deal with security guarantees for Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s former prime minister, also addressed the report, saying her Batkivshchyna party was “in talks with all our allies” to achieve a just peace but stressed that elections were “out of the question” until peace had been secured.
— With Alex Blair
Originally published as US politics live: ‘Confused’: Trump’s Canada move panned
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