Doug Ford reached his most aggressive tone to date this week when he blamed Donald Trump for “causing chaos” with his tariff threats, and experts say that the attacks by the conservative prime minister of Ontario and appeal to the president’s republican allies could be winning traction.
Ford was balanced at a press conference on Tuesday, the day Trump imposed 25 percent tariffs on most Canadian goods. He established some of his most pointed criticisms of man who once praised and promised his “Unwavering”.
Ford criticized Trump and asked Republican politicians in Congress and the United States Senate to retreate against the president, predicting that Americans would be punished in the medium -term elections of 2026 if the Americans felt the impact of tariffs.
“Then, the people of Congress in the Red states must speak for its people,” Ford said. “Because their factories will be empty, they will close, there will be unemployment, inflation will affect and hurt the American people.”
Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford says that the province will charge an additional 25 percent in electricity that goes to the United States starting from Monday. The retaliation movement will affect 1.5 million customers in three states. Lorenda Reddekopp of CBC has the latest.
Ford even reflected on the campaign against Trump himself.
“You need to pay the price in the mid -terms,” he said. “If I have to go there and play the doors, I will.”
Trump Ally asks Ford to attenuate his rhetoric
According to a report by Globe and Mail, confirmed by CBC Toronto, that tone caused a call from Trump’s own secretary of trade, Howard Lutnick. He asked Ford to relieve with his rhetoric, a request that the prime minister rejected.
The Shakir Chambers conservative strategist said Lutnick’s call shows that Ford has managed to get people’s attention in the White House and their appeals concern them. It is also channeling the frustrations of many Canadians who observe with anger the tariff threats.
“I have friends, and regardless of their political line, they applaud how aggressive Ford is in dealing with the White House,” said Chambers, vice president of the consulting firm Oyster Group.
Ford has been making multiple daily appearances in the US news programs. UU. Since December, when rate threats emerged for the first time, which have accelerated in recent days. In them, Ford has also aggressively blamed Trump for contributing to the increase in retail prices for Americans, something that goes to the president’s promise to reduce the cost of living.
Chambers said that he initially dismissed the American media strategy of the Ford team, thinking that it would be ineffective in the mass market of US media. But after this week, he believes that the prime minister may have broken down with messages aimed at American conservatives who look at channels like Fox News.
“When you have American conservatives and American commentators say: ‘This is a silly idea, we might retreat,’ I think those are the voices that Donald Trump listens to,” he said. “Ford is connecting with the appropriate audience in the United States.”
Ford learns a tough lesson on Trump, says the expert
The Professor of Political Science at McMaster University, Peter Graefe, said it is difficult to take seriously Ford’s new aggression towards Trump. During the Ontario elections, Ford admitted within the ear of a microphone that was happy that Trump won during the American elections of November.
Graefe points out that Trump’s opinions on rates have been clear for some time and Ford himself has learned a tough lesson on support for the president of the United States Mercurial.
“I think Mr. Ford may be late to discover some characteristics of Mr. Trump’s personality or how he involves situations,” Graefe said. “But the very material impacts of Mr. Trump’s decisions mean that Ford has taken out of thinking as a partisan and having to think much more as an ontant.”
The Charles Bird liberal strategist said that Ford’s difficult talk can be an asset for federal ministers who are directly negotiating with the Trump administration. He can go further in his rhetoric and play “police evil” because he is not sitting at the table, he said.
“Prime Minister Ford has not hesitated to go to them with both barrels,” said Bird, director of Earnscliffe Strategies. “That is something that our federal ministers and the prime minister have to be a bit more careful.”
Graefe said it is skeptical of the general impact of the Rhetoric and Ford media strategy. But he believes that he is more appropriate, as a prominent Canadian conservative, to deliver the message of the harmful impacts of tariffs to Americans than other Canadian politicians.
“It is probably more effective than Mr. Trudeau to reach parts of the American electorate with the message that this is not something that Canada wants to do, but has no other option,” he said. “The dial is really not moving so much, but presumably that is better than the alternative of not moving it at all.”
But Bird does not agree, and points out Lutnick’s call as evidence that Ford has gotten under Trump’s skin.
“I say this as a liberal lifetime, I would tell you to keep doing what you are doing,” he said. “If this becomes uncomfortable politically so that Americans are doing, already measure that we approach in the middle of the sections at the end of next year … that is significant.
“We only have so many letters to play.”
