US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose heavy tariffs on the European Union, or to halt trade with the bloc in some areas, if Brussels makes Canada its first associate member.
He spoke to reporters in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 16, hours after the proposal was set out in Strasbourg.
Trump said his response would depend on how he read European intentions. “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 said.
The President dismissed the prospect of Canada moving closer to the EU as laughable and called his northern neighbour a terrible trade partner. He did not name the sectors he would target or explain how he would judge the intent behind the plan.
The offer came from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who used her State of the Union address to invite Canada to become the bloc’s first associate member on September 16. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney sat in the chamber of the European Parliament as she spoke.
No such status exists in the EU treaties. Any arrangement would have to be agreed by member states and ratified in each of them, a process that could run for years.
Von der Leyen sketched joint work on manufacturing, critical raw materials, artificial intelligence, energy and the Arctic, alongside a technology alliance and closer integration of defence industries.
Carney had already ruled out full membership on September 13, saying his government was after a unique alliance rather than a seat at the table.
Canada is the only non-European country taking part in the EU’s SAFE defence instrument, which gives Canadian firms preferential access to European procurement.
Ottawa has been hunting for alternatives to the American market since trade talks with Washington collapsed in August. The United States then imposed 50 per cent tariffs on a range of Canadian goods and Canada matched them from September 8.
For Brussels, the threat tests the framework struck with Washington last year, which set a ceiling of 15 per cent on most EU exports to the United States.
The European Commission answered on September 17 that the plan was aimed at nobody. Trade spokesman Olof Gill said the proposed partnership with Canada was “not against anyone else, but for our common strength”.
Von der Leyen gave no detail on how the new status would be built, and the announcement reached several capitals without warning. Diplomatic sources in a number of member states told Europa Press they supported closer cooperation with Ottawa but were unsure what the Commission President had in mind.
One of those sources said the initiative had not been coordinated with member states beforehand. Others said the shape of the relationship, and even the name it should carry, had still to be discussed.
The idea itself is not new in Brussels. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz floated associate membership for Ukraine earlier this year, an offer Kyiv received coldly while pressing for full accession.
Carney addressed the European Parliament on September 17. An EU-Canada summit is scheduled in Canada on October 29-30.
