Blame Canada: Five charts capture Trump’s growing hostility toward his northern neighbour

Has it really been almost two years? There’s something about living under constant threat of economic subjugation by the world’s reigning superpower that makes time lose all meaning.

As we approach the midway point of U.S. President Donald Trump’s maximalist second term, Canadians might indulge in a brief intermission. “Halfway there,” the nation whispers to itself, like a mantra.

It’s a moment to take stock of what we have endured so far. Sure, it’s been two years of utter chaos. But can we quantify it?

Back in the spring, we tried to illustrate, in graphical form, just how much Mr. Trump hates Canada. Did our chart package answer any real questions? It did not. It mostly confirmed what was already painfully clear to any Canadian paying attention: Mr. Trump has a weird fixation with Canada, he talks about us with deep hostility and his threats toward the country since his second inauguration have been varied and incessant.

Still, it was fun, in a twisted sort of way, to give measure to Canada’s plight in the era of Trump. Six months later, the rift has only widened.

So we turn to charts once again to try to make sense of Mr. Trump’s unique brand of animosity.

The great Canadian putdown

“Does anybody like Canada?” Mr. Trump asked at a political rally in Alaska a couple of weeks ago, in the run-up to the midterm elections. There was a smattering of boos, some thumbs pointed down.

Never mind that Canada makes up Alaska’s only overland trade route to and from the lower 48 states. What’s truly mind-blowing is how commonplace Canada-bashing has become in Trump’s America. In less than two years, he’s recast us from closest ally to national villain.

If it feels like anti-Canada sentiment has risen dramatically of late, the numbers back that up.

Using archives from Roll Call Factba.se, we examined transcripts of Mr. Trump’s speeches and social-media posts in which Canada was mentioned. These were fed into Google Gemini Flash 2.0, a large language model that has been tested for sentiment analysis, to give us a temperature check on Mr. Trump’s attitude toward Canada over time. Any comments scoring a four or five on a five-point scale are classified as “hostile.”

The resulting indicator shows Mr. Trump’s ire breaking sharply to the upside in August, when trade talks with Canada collapsed. “One of the nastiest countries in the world to deal with,” Mr. Trump said soon after.

At the peak of his contempt, more than half of his references to Canada rated as hostile and remained elevated through the midterm campaign trail. If Canada-hate were a tradeable commodity, these would be boom times.

The north gets an earful

Mr. Trump has a truly torrential verbal output. Always has.

In our last instalment, we looked at how often he spoke of Canada compared to Joe Biden. In Mr. Trump’s second term up to that point, he referenced Canada about 12 times more often than his predecessor did.

This time, we compared Mr. Trump’s mentions of Canada relative to other countries. The top six are all geopolitical hotspots, including countries the U.S. has fought recent wars with or against, as well as countries at war with each other. China is up there, too, but it curiously gets mentioned far less now than in Mr. Trump’s first term.

It seems like China is less of a punching bag for Mr. Trump, who is instead cultivating a more diplomatic relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping these days. Other countries have made up the confrontational shortfall, Canada included, which ranks seventh by number of mentions, at an average of nearly one per day.

Analysis: A weakened Trump still means trouble for the Canadian economy

Mr. Trump hasn’t stuck with the same old arsenal of rhetorical salvos, such as 51st state, or Canada keeps ripping us off, etc., etc.

In just the past six months, he floated further tariffs against Canada over wildfire smoke it cannot control, moved to rename Lake Ontario, blocked the opening of a bridge Canada financed in its entirety, threatened to ban Bombardier from selling jets in the U.S., called Canada’s potential alliance with the European Union a “hostile act” and claimed that America bankrolls the entire Canadian health-care system.

Remember a time when Americans noticed us so little, it was newsworthy every time it happened? The good old days.

Trump’s renaming rampage

No one can say Mr. Trump is a complacent bully. His provocations evolve over time.

In his second term, he has combined a flair for relentless branding with a penchant for geopolitical trolling. What you get is the weaponization of proper nouns.

Mr. Trump has been slapping his name on stuff for decades, from office towers to steaks, from airlines to neckties, from memecoins to board games. The landfills of America must be teeming with Trump-branded detritus.

Give a man like that the power of the U.S. presidency, and naturally he’ll start stalking bigger game, like mountains, lakes, states and oceans.

Map makers worldwide strive to navigate Trump edict on Lake Ontario

Take his “Lake America” stunt. Infuriated after Canada walked away from a bad trade deal, Mr. Trump ordered U.S. government agencies to change the name of Lake Ontario. With the stroke of a pen, he trolled an entire country, laid claim to a shared feature and took another jab at Canadian sovereignty, if only symbolically.

Next step: repeat the name change incessantly to make it indelible, as he has done with “Lake America” a couple of dozen times in the past two months.

He followed the same playbook with the Gulf of Mexico, rechristening it the “Gulf of America.” Since then, he’s floated changing the state name of New Mexico to New America. And most sublimely, he has made overtures about turning the Atlantic Ocean into Trump Ocean.

Masterful stuff. If only there were a Nobel Prize category for advancements in antagonism.

At least Democrats have our backs, sort of

Former U.S. president Barack Obama recently came to Canada’s defence at a rally for Democratic midterm candidates in Ohio. “These are the people who gave us maple syrup and Martin Short,” he said.

It would have been nice if he talked about how we sheltered thousands of Americans on 9/11, fought alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan, are a crucial supplier of commodities and components to the U.S. and are a reliable partner in one of the world’s greatest trade relationships. But we’ll take it, I guess.

One of the most jarring aspects of the past couple of years is how easily Mr. Trump has managed to convince his followers that Canada is an economic enemy. And since America is hopelessly divided along partisan lines, Democrats have come to our defence by reflex.

You can see it in the data. In the same way we analyzed Mr. Trump’s speeches, we also ran official congressional transcripts through Google Gemini to provide the same sentiment rating each time speakers in Congress talked about Canada.

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For the latest period available, which goes up to the end of September, just 17 per cent of Republican mentions of Canada rated sympathetic in our model. Democratic speakers, on the other hand, sided with Canada about 70 per cent of the time.

Is it just empty rhetoric? You bet it is. Democrats are just as protectionist as their counterparts, and if they regain power, the party is unlikely to fully roll back the tariffs against Canada it inherits.

But when the alternative is a Canada-phobic menace, you cling to hollow support like grim death.

The Canadian cold shoulder

It may be true that your enemies bring out the best in you. It has warmed the heart to see such a fierce consumer backlash to Mr. Trump’s onslaught.

Canadian travel to U.S. destinations declined by as much as 30 per cent, according to data on travellers crossing the border back into Canada. Sales of American alcohol products in Canada, meanwhile, dropped by as much as 70 per cent, which really sticks in the President’s craw.

What’s baffling is that this administration seems genuinely surprised by the Canadian reaction. Mr. Trump thinks Canada is “nasty” because of the boycott movement. For a wannabe strongman, he sure whines a lot. Brace yourself for a whole lot more of it before his reign finally comes to an end.

Two years down, two to go.