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Trump threatens to impose ‘serious tariffs’ on Europe if Canada joins EU as associate member
Trump
threatens to impose ‘serious tariffs’ on Europe if Canada joins EU as associate
member
The
president's threat comes as Canada seeks closer ties with Europe amid its
deteriorating relationship with Washington.
By Jalen
Beckford
09/17/2026
02:36 AM GMT+2
President
Donald Trump pulled out one of his favorite words as he threatened retaliation
if the European Union were to admit Canada as an associate member.
Trump
told reporters Wednesday that he might respond with “serious tariffs” if Canada
were to become integrated with the 27-member EU to a degree that he perceived
would be hostile to the U.S. amid a trade war with its northern neighbor.
He called
it “laughable” that Canada would become an associate member, as European
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed earlier in the day during
her State of the Union speech.
“Canada’s
been a terrible trade partner,” Trump told reporters at the airport in
Charlotte, North Carolina, when asked about the proposal. “If I think it’s at
all a hostile act, I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe
on many things,” he added.
Trump
left open the possibility that he would accept the arrangement if he believed
it was made with “a good intention,” but warned that the U.S. could otherwise
impose “very heavy tariffs on Europe.”
Von der
Leyen first floated the idea of making Canada the first associate member of the
EU with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in attendance.
“I would
like to work with you on opening the door for Canada to be the first associate
member of the EU,” von der Leyen said. She also announced a broader “Alliance
for the Future” built on the already existing EU-Canada trade deal.
The
proposal caught European capitals off guard, and Canadian leaders appear to be
distancing themselves from the idea. It also remains unclear what associate
membership would entail, considering no such status currently exists under EU
law.
Canada’s
incoming ambassador to the EU, Jonathan Wilkinson, quickly downplayed the
prospect. “We’re not there,” he told reporters in Strasbourg when asked about
it. “What we’re focused on is actually driving results.”
Trump’s
Wednesday comments come as Canada seeks to reduce its economic dependence on
the U.S. amid the escalating trade war between the two countries. Carney has
called for a “unique alliance” with the EU but has stopped short of fully
endorsing an associate membership.
Carney is
set to address the European Parliament on Thursday.
Trump Wanted Canada as the 51st State. He Ended Up Pushing It Toward the European Union.
News
Analysis
Trump
Wanted Canada as the 51st State. He Ended Up Pushing It Toward the European
Union.
The
invitation by the E.U. for Canada to become an “associate member” is a sign of
Mr. Trump’s brand of diplomacy, which often involves threatening America’s
closest friends.
President
Donald J. Trump with Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada in the Oval Office
last October. Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
By Luke Broadwater and Michael Crowley
Sept. 16,
2026
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/us/politics/trump-canada-51st-state-eu.html
Early in
his second term, President Trump wanted Canada so entwined with the United
States that he even set out to make it the 51st state. Instead, he has driven
Canada into the arms of the European Union, after antagonizing the Canadians
for months, taunting the country’s prime minister and waging a relentless
trade war.
The invitation
by the European Union on Wednesday for Canada to become an “associate
member” is a sign of the knock-on effects of Mr. Trump’s brand of diplomacy,
which often involves threatening countries that once were considered America’s
closest friends.
And even
if the gesture by the E.U. ends up being more symbolic than substantive, it
shows how Mr. Trump is upending global relationships in ways that will be
difficult to undo.
“We
should see this action from Canada and the E.U. as a direct consequence of
Trump’s actions and rhetoric,” said James Batchik, a deputy director at the
Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. “The rhetoric around making Canada the 51st
state, and the threats against Greenland, which are still highly, highly,
controversial and remembered in Brussels, are really reminders for both sides
that the United States is not necessarily that trusted ally that it once was.”
At every
turn, Mr. Trump’s bullying approach to Canada has appeared to backfire. His
trade war stirred up trouble
for embattled Republicans in swing states, endangering G.O.P. control of
the Senate. And his hostility toward Canadian leaders helped surge the
country’s struggling liberal party, no friend of Mr. Trump’s, to
electoral victory.
President
Trump responded to the E.U.’s overture to Canada with fury while speaking to
reporters Wednesday night.
“Canada’s
been a terrible trade partner,” he said. “No, I don’t see that. If they do
that, if I think it’s at all a hostile act, I will put very serious tariffs or
stop trading with Europe on many things. So, if they do that, if Europe does
that, with a bad intention — if it’s a good intention, that’s fine — if it’s a
bad intention we’ll put very heavy tariffs on Europe, which is a possibility.”
Mr.
Trump’s battle with Canada is part of his striking focus on a Western
Hemisphere that recent presidents, typically consumed with the Middle East and
Asia, have often neglected.
Mr.
Trump, emboldened after a U.S. operation that toppled the leader of Venezuela,
has set his sights this year on other countries in the Western Hemisphere. He
has applied massive economic pressure against Cuba and proposed a “friendly
takeover.” He has threatened to seize
the Panama Canal and to wrest
the North American island of Greenland from Denmark.
In an
update of the Monroe Doctrine, the 1823 foundational statement of U.S. claims
over the Western Hemisphere, with what he called the “Trump Corollary,” Mr.
Trump formally declared that “the American people — not foreign
nations nor globalist institutions — will always control their own destiny in
our hemisphere.”
(Mr.
Trump often refers to the concept as the “Donroe Doctrine,” named after
himself.)
In the
cases of Cuba and Venezuela, Mr. Trump’s policies are led by Secretary of State
Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American whose interest in Latin America is driven by his
strong anti-socialist ideology. Mr. Rubio has shown far less public enthusiasm
for Mr. Trump’s territorial claims than he does for democratizing the region.
But Mr.
Trump’s fixation with Canada is mainly rooted in trade and economics, not
territory or politics.
The
president started his second term threatening
Canada’s previous leader, Justin Trudeau, whom Mr. Trump publicly derided,
with unilaterally scrapping agreements that have governed the relationship
between the neighboring countries for over a century.
He has
imposed tariffs on Canada, which with Mexico is one of America’s two top
trading partners, that are crippling some of Canada’s key economic sectors,
such as autos, steel, aluminum and lumber.
In part
because of Mr. Trump’s attacks, Canadians rallied around Mr. Trudeau’s
successor, Prime Minister Mark Carney, who positioned himself as a fighter
against the American president. This year, Mr. Carney delivered a speech in
Davos, Switzerland, in which he called for a new world order, no longer led by
America, prompting global political and corporate leaders in the audience to
rise from their seats for a rare standing ovation.
“The
middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the
menu,” Mr. Carney said.
Liana
Fix, a senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations, said it
wasn’t clear what Canada becoming an “associate member” of the E.U. would mean,
beyond trade and defense agreements already in place. But Canada and the
European Union will meet for a summit at the end of October, when they are
expected to lay out more concrete ideas.
Ursula
von der Leyen, the president of the European Union, has said Canada and Europe
could work more closely together on the Arctic, their defense industrial bases
and critical minerals.
“The E.U.
wants to make a statement that the middle powers have a say and will not be
bullied by the Trump administration,” Ms. Fix said.
The
reaction of Canada and European leaders is perhaps unsurprising, given Mr.
Trump’s penchant for attacking allies and playing nice with historic rivals,
Mr. Batchik said.
“Donald
Trump has been pulling his punches toward some of our adversaries, top of mind
Russia and China, and doubling down and taking a rather gleeful approach to
needling our previous would-be allies,” Mr. Batchik said. “You’re starting to
see many across Europe taking that to heart and saying, OK, if that’s truly the
case, if that’s how the United States is going to treat its allies, they’re
just going to look elsewhere.”
It could
end up being “a generational turn away from the United States,” he said, “or at
least will take a significant amount of energy and time to repair these
relations.”
Erica L.
Green contributed.
Luke Broadwater covers
the White House for The Times.
Michael Crowley covers
the State Department and U.S. foreign policy for The Times. He has reported
from nearly three dozen countries and often travels with the secretary of
state.
Trump calls EU offer to Canada of associate membership ‘laughable’, while threatening tariffs
.jpeg)
Trump
calls EU offer to Canada of associate membership ‘laughable’, while threatening
tariffs
US
president warns over ‘hostile act’, as Canada seeks to move closer to the EU
and diversify its defence ties
Guardian
staff and agencies
Thu 17
Sep 2026 02.13 BST
Donald
Trump has threatened the European Union with “serious tariffs” and a cut to
trade after the bloc proposed to make Canada its first ever associate member,
calling the idea “laughable”.
Suggesting
the move was a “hostile act”, the US president told reporters he could put
“very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe”. He added: “If it’s a good
intention, that’s fine. If it’s a bad intention, we’ll put very heavy tariffs
on Europe.”
European
Commission president Ursula von der Leyen invited Canada to become the EU’s
first “associate member” on Wednesday, a day before Canadian prime minister
Mark Carney was due to address the European parliament.
Von der
Leyen pitched closer cooperation on tech, defence and energy to Carney, telling
the European parliament that, as democracies face a “fracture in the
international rules-based system”, Brussels and Ottawa needed to pull closer
together.
Canada
and the EU already have a trade deal and numerous bilateral agreements, but
have been moving closer since Donald Trump returned to the White House and
raised tariffs on both old allies, while repeatedly talking about Canada
becoming the 51st US state and lambasting the EU.
In a sign
that Canada was seeking to further diversify its defence ties away from the United States, Carney’s office announced on Wednesday that
the country had formally applied to join the British-led Joint Expeditionary
Force military coalition.
The force
is a rapid response military partnership comprised of 10 North Atlantic Nato
member states, including Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
On
Wednesday, Carney and British prime minister Andy Burnham held a bilateral
meeting at the grounds of Everton football club. The leaders, who are both fans
of the premiership club, then attended the team’s game against Wolves.
The two
discussed deepening defence cooperation and the opportunities and challenges presented by artificial intelligence. Downing Street said
both prime ministers emphasised the importance of building close ties with European
partners, particularly on trade and defence.
The
27-member EU has never had an associate membership category, although it has
close ties with Norway, Iceland and Switzerland, allowing deep economic
integration with these countries, who follow many EU rules. However it remains
to be seen what associate membership means, including for Canada’s relationship
with the EU single market.
Von der
Leyen said on Wednesday it was time to move from cooperation based on trade to
a broader “alliance for the future” and “bring the relationship with Canada to
the highest level possible.
“We will
work on intelligent manufacturing. We will create a tech alliance. We will
integrate defence industrial bases. We will make the Arctic a flagship joint
project,” she said.
She
listed energy, critical minerals, batteries, AI, cyber and economic security as
other fields of cooperation. “This is a partnership not against anyone else,
but for our common strength,” she said.
With
Agence France-Presse and Reuters
quarta-feira, 16 de setembro de 2026
Former French culture minister goes on trial over corruption charges
.jpeg)
Former
French culture minister goes on trial over corruption charges
Rachida
Dati accused of lobbying for carmaker Renault-Nissan when she was member of
European parliament
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Wed 16
Sep 2026 16.48 BST
Rachida
Dati, a former French culture minister, has gone on trial in Paris on
corruption charges linked to dealings with the Renault-Nissan carmaking group.
Dati, 60,
is accused of illegal lobbying when she accepted €900,000 (£770,000) in
lawyer’s fees from a Netherlands-based subsidiary of Renault-Nissan while she
was a member of the European parliament. The court will have to decide what the
money was for.
Dati’s
legal team denied all corruption allegations, saying she worked “exclusively”
as a lawyer for the Renault-Nissan subsidiary. French prosecutors argue that
she was instead paid to lobby for the carmaking group, an activity that is
banned for members of the European parliament. Prosecutors said there was a
lack of evidence to show Dati had carried out legal work.
Dati was
placed under investigation in 2019 on suspicion of illegally lobbying for
Renault-Nissan between October 2009 and February 2013, when she was an MEP.
Dati is
on trial with Carlos
Ghosn, the disgraced former Renault-Nissan chief, who will be tried in
absentia. Ghosn, 72, was detained in Japan in November 2018 amid allegations of
financial misconduct in a separate case involving a plot to falsify records
about his personal pay in order to enrich himself. He dodged trial in Japan
after escaping to Lebanon in
an audio equipment case. He has denied all wrongdoing in the Japan case as
well as in the Dati case.
French
prosecutors argue that a legal services contract signed in 2009 between Dati
and Ghosn, in which Dati was paid an annual fee of €300,000, was used to
disguise lobbying work. Investigators obtained the contract in 2019 during a
search of Renault’s headquarters after Ghosn’s arrest in Japan.
Dati, 60,
who is the district mayor of the 7th arrondissement in Paris, is one of the
most prominent figures on the French right. She was the first woman of north
African and Muslim heritage to hold a major French government post when she was
appointed justice minister by the rightwing president Nicolas Sarkozy. She
returned to government under Emmanuel Macron, as culture minister.
Dati
redefined political celebrity in France, and has said growing up as the second
of 11 children on a low-income housing estate on the outskirts of
Chalon-sur-Saône in Burgundy gave her a greater understanding of the French
electorate. She ran
for mayor of Paris earlier this year, but lost to the Socialist Emmanuel
Grégoire.
If
convicted, Dati faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to €450,000.
She could also face a five-year ban on holding public office.
Dati’s
lawyers said: “Unfounded allegations of influence peddling in the European
parliament stem from an artificial intellectual construct devised by the
prosecution.”
In a
separate investigation, Dati has been accused of accepting nearly €300,000 in
undeclared payments from the energy group GDF Suez, also while an MEP.
Prosecutors said last year they were looking into reports Dati failed to
declare jewellery and watches worth €420,000 upon taking ministerial office.
She has
denied any wrongdoing in all cases.
Merz cancels UN visit after AfD election win puts his leadership on the ropes
Merz
cancels UN visit after AfD election win puts his leadership on the ropes
German
chancellor gets support from state leaders but further far-right gains this
weekend could spell the end
Deborah Cole in Berlin
Wed 16
Sep 2026 13.40 BST
Powerful
German state leaders from Friedrich Merz’s party have rallied behind him as
speculation builds that his days in office may be numbered.
The
chancellor’s hold on power has looked increasingly shaky since a bombshell
regional election result earlier this month in which the far-right Alternative
für Deutschland (AfD) party routed his Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
party in Saxony-Anhalt.
With two
more states heading to the polls on Sunday where the AfD is expected to perform
well, Merz cancelled a plan to speak at the UN general assembly in New York
next week because “his presence is required in Berlin”, a government official
said on condition of anonymity.
The
announcement triggered fresh rumours that the unpopular chancellor could be
preparing his own exit or wanted to remain
and fight off a potential coup. With Merz
on the ropes after just 16 months in office, eight state premiers from the CDU issued a surprise joint
statement backing him.
Citing
the threat posed by nativist parties across Europe, they wrote: “Now more than
ever, Germany’s political landscape needs stability”, pointing to elections
in Poland, Italy, Spain, Greece and France next year in which the political
establishment faces
a far-right challenge. “The path to restoring public trust in Christian
Democrats lies in listening and taking political action, not in debates over
personnel.”
They
added that Germany
needed “reliability and decisive action” and, as state leaders, “we want to,
and will, do our part to achieve this together with the chancellor”.
The
signatories included leaders who have been mentioned as possible Merz
successors, such as North Rhine-Westphalia’s Hendrik Wüst. Markus Söder, the
Bavarian premier and an ambitious conservative populist, has also said he was
backing Merz.
Voters in
the Berlin state parliament election are expected to punish the CDU again.
Photograph: Markus Schreiber/AP
It
remains to be seen how long the demonstration of solidarity with Merz will
hold, with much depending on the outcome of the weekend elections. Polls
indicate voters are very likely to punish
the CDU again in the states of Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on
the Baltic coast, amid widespread dissatisfaction with Merz’s federal coalition
government formed with the Social Democrats.
Merz, who
is also the CDU’s chair, will convene a meeting of its leadership on Sunday
evening to coordinate a response as the results come in, in what senior party
members called a pre-emptive “show of unity” behind the chancellor.
The
anti-immigration, pro-Kremlin AfD’s resounding win in Saxony-Anhalt sent a
shockwave through Europe’s largest economy and
beyond, although the party fell just short of the absolute majority
required to govern alone in the state.
It is
seeking enough support from other parties’ lawmakers in the state parliament to
make its chief candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, the first far-right regional leader
in Germany since the Nazi period.
The AfD
candidate Ulrich Siegmund came out on top during Saxony-Anhalt’s state
elections earlier this month. Photograph: Matthias Schräder/AP
Merz took
office in May 2025 promising to cut the surging AfD back down to size by
reviving the moribund economy and addressing fears around “irregular”
migration.
Instead,
the AfD is now topping the national polls with clear momentum behind it. The
party’s co-leader, Alice Weidel, has targeted the CDU for “destruction” and
pledged last week in parliament that Merz’s party would “never win another
election again”.
During
the same debate in the Bundestag, a wan and defensive Merz lashed out at Weidel
and the AfD’s lawmakers, accusing them of seeking
“ethnic cleansing” with their calls for “remigration”, a legally dubious
programme of mass deportations. Critics said he failed to outline a clear
vision for the remainder of his term.
Weidel,
whose party drew congratulations from Donald
Trump and Elon
Musk for its Saxony-Anhalt victory, on Wednesday taunted the state leaders
backing Merz.
“The CDU
is making it clear that it is committed to ‘business as usual’ rather than the
positive changes that citizens need,” she posted on Musk’s social media
platform X. “The only way to achieve those changes is with the AfD!”
Alice
Weidel, the AfD’s parliamentary group leader, speaks in the Bundestag last
week. Photograph: Christoph Soeder/DPA/AP
The
month’s developments have triggered a sense of helplessness and fear among the
mainstream democratic parties, with even the opposition Green party calling on
the CDU to right the ship before it is too late.
“Get your
shit together,” said the Greens co-leader Felix Banaszak in Berlin, appealing
to Merz and the CDU to end speculation that he called destabilising.
Banaszak
said that while he was no fan of the centre-right-led government, he warned
that calls for a Kanzlertausch,
a swap of the chancellor from Merz in favour of another Christian Democrat,
could trigger new elections in which the AfD could come out on top.
“We live
in such dramatic times that this country just can’t afford that right now,” he
said.
The next
general election is due in 2029.
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