Donald Trump has threatened to unleash travel chaos across the U.S. to get back at America’s northern neighbor for slighting him.
“Based on the fact that Canada has wrongfully, illegally and steadfastly refused to certify the Gulfstream 500, 600, 700 and 800 Jets, one of the greatest, most technologically advanced airplanes ever made, we are hereby decertifying their Bombardier Global Expresses, and all Aircraft made in Canada, until such time as Gulfstream, a Great American Company, is fully certified, as it should have been many years ago,” the president wrote Thursday on Truth Social.
Thousands of Canadian-made aircraft are currently in use across the United States. Decertifying those planes would prompt unmitigated travel disruptions throughout the country.
It was not immediately clear how Trump could legally decertify aircraft en masse for political or trade reasons. A White House official cited by Reuters said Trump was not referring to planes already in operation. He’s nevertheless threatened a 50 percent tariff on any Canadian planes sold in the U.S. “if, for any reason, this situation is not immediately corrected.”
Canada has not in fact “refused” to certify any new Gulfstream aircraft at all. “There’s a delay that’s always in place in terms of certification, of changes being made by the manufacturers, and it’s all a normal process,” John Gradek, a former Air Canada executive, told the FT.
He said the U.S. president is “taking a shot at Carney. He is still feeling the aftershocks of Davos and doing whatever he can to make life difficult.”
The MAGA leader is reportedly livid with Mark Carney after the Canadian prime minister took shots at the White House at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this month.
Carney called on global leaders to accept that the rules-based international order is now dead in the wake of Trump’s invasion of Venezuela and threats of annexing Greenland, a NATO territory.
Since then, Canada has forged ahead with a diplomatic reset and fresh trade negotiations with China. The U.K. and several other European countries appear to be following suit.
Trump responded to Carney’s comments in Davos by warning that Canada “lives because of the United States.” He suggested the Canadian leader “remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”
The president also advised historic trade partners not to seek closer relations with China. “It’s more dangerous for Canada to do that,” he told reporters Thursday. “The first thing they’re going to do is say you are not allowed to play ice hockey anymore.”
“That’s not good,” he added.
It’s an open question whether Trump will deliver on his threats of responding to an imaginary slight from Canada with tariffs of 50 percent.
The president has repeatedly threatened astronomical tariffs, as high as 200 percent, against Iran, Canada and a number of European countries over the past several weeks. As of Friday, he has not imposed any of them.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment on this story.
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