Bessent to Carney: ‘Stop Campaigning, Start Governing’ as Canada Slaps Tariffs on $20B of U.S. Goods

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday delivered a blunt rebuke to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, telling him to “stop campaigning and start governing” as Ottawa pushed ahead with retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of American goods.

Speaking at Breitbart’s State of the Economy event in Washington, Bessent said Carney rose to power on an anti-Trump platform that has ultimately undermined Canada’s chances of securing a trade deal with the United States. The comments came just hours after Canada’s early-morning tariffs took effect on a broad range of U.S. products, including milk, perfume, video game consoles, golf clubs, fishing rods, steel, aluminum, jackets, and T-shirts.

Carney pledges dollar-for-dollar match

In a video announcement, Carney said Canada was matching U.S. tariffs dollar-for-dollar and acknowledged the move would hit some Canadian families harder than others.

“This won’t be easy, and I won’t pretend otherwise,” Carney said, urging Canadians to buy and travel domestically in response to the trade dispute.

Bessent, however, dismissed the notion that Canada’s aggressive posture would cause meaningful pain to the United States. He said he walked his team through an inflation-impact exercise and found that even assuming 100 percent passthrough of the tariffs, the effect would add just .02 percent to U.S. prices — “not even a rounding error,” according to Breitbart economics editor John Carney.

Bessent’s German Shepherd analogy

The Treasury secretary likened Carney’s approach to trade talks to a humorous anecdote about his German Shepherd growing tired of the “yapping” from a miniature dachshund. Bessent insisted the deal currently on the table was the best trade deal any country has ever been offered.

He concluded by warning that prolonged trade uncertainty would push companies to choose the United States over Canada when deciding where to locate production.

“If I were the Canadians I’d be careful. They wanted the benefits of being a state without being a state,” Bessent said.

The remarks underscore the widening rift between the two allies, with Carney’s government framing its tariffs as a necessary defense of Canadian sovereignty and the Trump administration viewing them as a punishment for what it sees as political posturing.

Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/09/08/exclusive-secretary-scott-bessent-canada-p-m-carney-needs-stop-campaigning-start-governing-they-wanted-benefits-being-state-without-being-state/