U.S. President Donald Trump threatened \u201cvery serious tariffs\u201d \u2014 or even stopping trade with Europe on many goods \u2014 if the European Union moves ahead with making Canada its first \u201cassociate member,\u201d calling the idea \u201claughable,\u201d Reuters and the BBC reported Thursday.<\/p>\n
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday she wanted to work on \u201copening the door\u201d for Canadian associate status, with closer ties on manufacturing, energy, and other sectors. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg, welcomed that ambition, said Canada is not seeking full EU membership, and framed a deeper alliance as a response to a \u201cgeopolitical rupture\u201d in which tariffs and financial tools are used for pressure. He told reporters afterward that nobody will dictate Canada\u2019s language, culture, or whom it can strike agreements with \u2014 and that a stronger Canada would be a more effective partner for the United States. A Montreal summit at the end of October is meant to drill down details.<\/p>\n
Trump, speaking en route to an event in North Carolina, said if he sees a \u201chostile act\u201d or \u201cbad intention,\u201d he will hit Europe hard; if the intention is good, \u201cthat\u2019s fine.\u201d Canadian Conservatives have already flagged worries about EU rules on taxes, laws, and immigration, while an Abacus Data survey cited by the BBC found about 80% of Canadians support deeper strategic co-operation with the EU.<\/p>\n
Sources:<\/strong> Reuters<\/a>; BBC<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Carney welcomes \u201cassociate member\u201d talk and says nobody dictates Canada\u2019s friends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/bb-canada-eu-tariffs-0917.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions\/241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}