Trump’s tariff threat against Canada began with a friend’s Gulfstream certification dispute
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his threat to impose 50 percent tariffs on every aircraft Canada sells into the United States began with a favor for a wealthy friend who was trying to buy a private jet and could not.
Speaking in the Oval Office at an event convened to celebrate the summer travel season, Trump volunteered the account unprompted, in response to a question about whether trade talks with Ottawa would resume.
"I had a case about a week ago where a friend of mine was buying the Gulfstream jet, and he said, ’You know, it’s a crazy thing. We’re not able — that Canada won’t certify Gulfstream,’" the president said.
"Gulfstream is the best private jet, considered the best of the best, and they won’t certify it in Canada because they make a competitor, Bombardier Global Express, and so their competitor didn’t want them to have competition."
The friend, Trump said, put him in touch with the manufacturer directly. "He’s very friendly with Gulfstream. He told the head of Gulfstream to call me, gave him the numbers. We called. We spoke."
What the head of Gulfstream told him, according to the president, was that the company had spent "$60 million trying to get certified in Canada" over roughly nine years without success.
"So I immediately said, ’I’m putting a major tariff on Bombardier and other things that they sent until they’re certified,’" Trump said. "They got certified in two hours."
He then described a call from Prime Minister Mark Carney, whom he did not name. "I got a call from the Prime Minister. ’President, what seems to be the problem?’ I said, well, you have a little problem. For nine years, you didn’t certify Gulfstream." He said he told Carney the United States would tariff "various products, including Bombardier," and that "within 30 minutes, I guess it took maybe less — everything got certified."
"He told me they spent millions and millions of dollars on legal fees over about a nine-year period trying to do it," Trump said. "I did it in a matter of moments."
The president appeared to be recalling a series of events from the beginning of this year, starting with a threat in a January 29 Truth Social post in which he complained that Canada was "effectively prohibiting the sale of Gulfstream products in Canada through this very same certification process" and that if the situation was not "immediately corrected," he would charge "a 50% Tariff on any and all aircraft sold into the United States of America."
He also said the United States was decertifying the Bombardier Global Express, an action that falls to the Federal Aviation Administration rather than the president.
Transport Canada certified the Gulfstream G500 and G600 on February 16 and the G700 and G800 on February 23 — 26 days after the post, not two hours. The tariff was never imposed.
Trump’s comments come a week into a renewed trade war with America’s Northern neighbor that shows no signs of abating.
When pressed on the status of trade talks with Ottawa, the president launched into a rant about alleged economic grievances against Canada, claiming the U.S. loses "anywhere from 60 to $100 billion" a year in cross-border trade deficits.
Those allegations don’t match data from the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, which shows America’s trade deficit in goods with Canada was $48.3 billion in 2025, down 21 percent from the previous year, with a $27.7 billion services surplus for a combined gap of roughly $21 billion.
The president also repeated a baseless claim about American banks being barred from operating north of the border in Canada, alleging that Ottawa “basically” does not allow any American financial institutions into the country.
In reality, 16 U.S. bank subsidiaries and branches operate in Canada. One of them, Citibank, has had a presence there since 1919.
Trump would not say if or when talks on a renewed trade agreement between the U.S. and Canada would resume and suggested that the U.S. has no need for trade with the longtime ally.
“They need us, we don’t need them. They’ve taken advantage of us for years, and it’s time to stop,” he said.
He added that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was, in his estimation, a “nice guy” while lashing out at Ontario’s Conservative Party premier Doug Ford, calling him a “slob.”
World Affairs Correspondent
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