Calling out Canada's Prime Minister Carney by his first name, Trump said on Wednesday: "Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements." He added that Canada "gets a lot of freebies" from the US, and that "they should be grateful".

Carney evoked the landmark 1978 essay “The Power of the Powerless“ by former Czech freedom fighter Václav Havel, who eventually led the Velvet Revolution that led to free elections in his country in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall toppled the Soviet Union. Havel later received a hero’s welcome in Canada in 1999.