Trump officials are losing the troll war, too

Trade Stalemate Meets Social Media Warfare as Ottawa and Washington Trade Barbs Over Tariffs

Goldlaner.com – The 50 percent tariffs Washington slapped onto a wide range of Canadian imports — matched dollar-for-dollar by retaliatory duties from Ottawa — remain firmly in place, and the diplomatic channel between the two neighbors has effectively frozen. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who walked out of bilateral trade negotiations last week citing what he characterized as American intransigence, signaled Tuesday that he would welcome a restart of talks. His condition, however, was pointedly informal: the Americans need to stop performing for cameras first.

“When the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough and start being serious about having those discussions, we can have those discussions,” Carney said. “It’s not constructive. But that’s their democracy.”

The remark landed with particular force because, over the past several weeks, senior figures in the Trump administration have turned the Canada question into a running bit of political comedy. Rather than advancing any visible diplomatic initiative to de-escalate the tariff standoff, officials have gravitated toward social-media jabs, mockeries, and what Carney plainly regards as performative posturing.

The Eagle-and-Goose Bit

One recurring White House social-media post features an image of a bald eagle appearing to pin down a Canada goose. The graphic had been circulated before, but when it resurfaced, Canadian netizens quickly surfaced photographs showing the same goose coming out on top of the encounter. The exchange underscored how quickly a supposed power-assertion image can be deflated by a few seconds of image-searching.

The Lake Ontario Naming Saga

President Trump’s decision to rename Lake Ontario — a body of water shared by both countries and a cornerstone of Canadian geography — added another layer of friction. After the announcement, Trump reportedly phoned Apple to confirm the new name would appear on digital maps. In the United States, the change took effect. In Canada, it did not. Meanwhile, downloads of MapQuest spiked in app stores after the service declined to alter the lake’s name for American users, turning a cartographic dispute into a minor consumer-technology story.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, for his part, has not been shy about returning the rhetorical fire. Separately, at least one Canadian municipal council is weighing a proposal to rename a street currently bearing Trump’s name with a deliberately mocking alternative. The domestic Canadian response, in other words, has matched the tone Washington set.

“A Country That Doesn’t Have a Military”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy went further than a meme. In public remarks he described Canada as “a country that doesn’t have a military” — a claim that sits awkwardly beside the long history of Canadian soldiers fighting and dying alongside American forces across multiple world wars.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who lacks the reality-television or cable-news background that shapes some of his colleagues’ rhetorical instincts, nonetheless attempted his own dig Monday during a CNBC interview conducted ahead of a G20 finance meeting he is hosting in Asheville, North Carolina.

“I mean, we’re not at war with Canada. How are we going to be at war with Canada? They’re going to take their two set submarines from the Edmonton Mall and sic them on us,” Bessent said.

The joke referenced a now-closed submarine-themed attraction that once operated inside a shopping mall in Edmonton, Alberta. It landed as a cheap shot aimed at a NATO ally that has stood beside the United States since 1949.

Hegseth, the Cadet Photo, and an Army in Transition

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — who prefers the title “secretary of war” — posted a photograph on X on Monday showing two women in Canadian military uniforms. He appended a Canadian-flag emoji and the parenthetical “(this is real),” apparently attempting to belittle the professionalism of the Canadian armed forces. At least one of the women pictured may have been participating in a cadet program aimed at young Canadians considering public service. For a cabinet-level official to mock a teenager weighing a career in uniform struck many observers as a low blow, particularly toward a nation whose forces deployed alongside American troops in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Hegseth himself is no stranger to internet ridicule. Workout videos he regularly posts — featuring pull-ups and bench presses — have drawn sustained mockery online. For a man in his mid-to-late forties capable of performing multiple pull-ups, the online ribbing is arguably unfair. Yet the broader point stands: the spectacle of a defense secretary flexing does little to advance the war in Iran, which has dragged on months beyond the timeline Trump initially projected and has distorted global economic conditions.

The same day Hegseth posted the cadet photograph, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll — on the verge of resigning — reportedly traveled to the White House and told Trump that Hegseth’s tenure had left critical leadership vacancies unfilled within the Army. Several of Hegseth’s nominees for senior general positions may lack the bipartisan Senate support needed for confirmation. The recruiting picture, meanwhile, has held steady over the past two years in part thanks to pre-enlistment fitness programs designed to prepare American candidates to pass entry-level physical tests. Hegseth’s public posture toward young Canadians interested in military service sits in tension with the very pipeline the Army depends on.

What the Trade War Actually Looks Like Now

Strip away the memes, the renamed lakes, and the submarine jokes, and the underlying reality is unchanged: two of the world’s largest economies are locked in a tariff exchange that is inflating costs on both sides of the border, disrupting supply chains that have operated seamlessly for decades, and offering no visible diplomatic off-ramp. Carney’s Tuesday comments made clear that Ottawa will not re-engage until Washington signals a genuine intent to negotiate rather than to perform. Until that shift occurs, the 50 percent duties and their Canadian mirror will continue to tax consumers, manufacturers, and farmers in both countries — while the social-media war rages on, indifferent to freight bills and factory floors.