President-elect Donald Trump isn’t pulling punches when it comes to Chrystia Freeland’s exit from Justin Trudeau’s cabinet.
Following her bombshell resignation as finance minister and deputy prime minister, Trump said it was no great loss.
“The Great State of Canada is stunned as the finance minister resigns, or was fired, from her position by Governor Justin Trudeau,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Her behaviour was totally toxic and not at all conducive to making deals which are good for the very unhappy citizens of Canada. She will not be missed!!!”
Trump’s post also referenced what has become a running joke for him in recent weeks, referring to Canada as the 51st state of the United States with Trudeau as its governor.
This isn’t the first time Trump’s made his opinion about Freeland known. Following renegotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement in 2018, an agreement which was later replaced by Trump’s U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, Trump expressed his dissatisfaction with Freeland.
“We don’t like their representative very much,” he said of her.
Freeland’s resignation came just hours before the government announced its Fall Economic Statement, which revealed a $62 billion deficit for the fiscal year 2023/2024. The deficit was $22 billion beyond the $40 billion “fiscal guardrail” Freeland placed on the Liberal government at the start of the year.
The resignation spurred public statements from multiple Liberal MPs calling on Trudeau to resign himself.
Trump’s jests about annexing Canada started when he joked with Justin Trudeau at a dinner party at Mar-a-Lago that Canada could simply join the U.S. if it couldn’t deal with the threatened 25% tariffs.
He subsequently took multiple jabs at Trudeau, referring to him as “Governor Justin Trudeau” and to Canada as “the Great State of Canada.”
Trump shared an AI-generated image of himself looking over Canada – although it was actually the Swiss Alps – with a Canadian flag waving.
Canadian officials, including the newly appointed replacement for Freeland as finance minister, Dominic Leblanc, told Canadians not to worry as Trump’s dinner comments and subsequent social media posts amounted to jokes made among family or friends.
A recent Leger poll found that less than one-third of Canadians are confident in the Trudeau government’s ability to manage the incoming Trump administration and the tariff policies associated with it effectively.