Trump seeks to use Canada's recognition of Palestinian state as leverage in trade talks [View all]
President Donald Trump said Canada’s announcement it will recognize a Palestinian state “will make it very hard” for the U.S. to reach a trade agreement with its northern neighbor.
Trump’s threat, posted in the early hours Thursday on his social media network, is the latest way he has sought to use his trade war to coerce countries on unrelated issues and is a swing from the ambivalence he has expressed about other countries making such a move.
The Republican president said this week that he didn’t mind British Prime Minister Keir Starmer taking a position on the issue of formally recognizing Palestinian statehood. And last week he said that French President Emmanuel Macron’s similar move was “not going to change anything.”
But Trump, who has heckled Canada for months and suggested it should become its 51st U.S. state, indicated on Thursday that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s similar recognition would become leverage ahead of a deadline he set in trade talks.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-palestinians-canada-d5613417c217374352305564c6a96842
You can't blackmail a country whose economy is as strong as yours when yours is galling. And more countries are going to recognize Palestine.
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