Trump lashes out at Canada, promising major tariff hike and financial penalties that will be 'so big'

U.S. President Donald Trump is lashing out at Canada and using some of the strongest language he's ever deployed against the one-time ally and trading partner, vowing to ruin the country economically after Ontario levied a surcharge on U.S.-bound electricity to hit back at his initial tranche of tariffs.

In a series of social media posts Tuesday morning, the day after Ontario Premier Doug Ford's electricity levy took effect, Trump said he will make Canada pay "a financial price for this so big that it will be read about in History Books for many years to come."

Trump upped the ante on his annexation taunts saying the only way for Canada to avoid his attempts to torpedo the economy is for the country to "become our cherished Fifty-First State."

"This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear," he claimed.

Trump said the border between the two countries, which was first set centuries ago after the American Revolutionary War and reaffirmed by a series of treaties in the years to follow, is "an artificial line of separation" that he wants to see disappear.

"We will have the safest and most beautiful Nation anywhere in the world," Trump said.

Trump's claim about Canada becoming safer under American rule is a dubious one at best. The U.S. homicide rate, for example, is nearly four times higher per capita, according to recent U.S. and Canadian data.

Outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week Trump's tariffs on Canadian goods, which were first floated as a way to supposedly spur a crackdown on drugs and migrants at the border, are designed to prompt "a total collapse of the Canadian economy" so that it's "easier to annex us."

Trump said he has already instructed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to put an additional 25 per cent tariff on all steel and aluminum coming into the U.S. from Canada, bringing the total tariff on those products to 50 per cent starting Wednesday.

He falsely claimed Canada is "ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD."

Until Trump launched his trade war, most Canada-U.S. trade was entirely tariff-free under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement the president himself negotiated and signed in his first term.

A senior government official, speaking to CBC News on background, said Ottawa will hit back at Trump's latest tariff threat if and when it is actually enacted.

Ford said Trump's promised higher tariffs on steel and aluminum will hurt Americans most because U.S. manufacturers are reliant on the supply from Canada.

"The U.S. only has the capacity to produce 16 per cent of the aluminum they need," Ford said, noting 60 per cent of the other supply comes from Quebec alone.