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Trump denies US pushed Canada on French language

A Canada-U.S. deal to stave off American tariffs fell apart last week

By Gregory Svirnovskiy and Mickey Djuric

President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning denied that the White House had sought to interfere with the French language spoken in Quebec, as the two countries trade jabs over who is at fault for the trade war.

The president celebrated last week that the U.S. and Canada had reached a “DEAL” following months of negotiations to forestall American tariffs. But it fell apart on Friday, with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney pledging to match the U.S. levies “dollar for dollar.”

Carney on Saturday lamented what he called “threats to the French language” and “the Quebec culture,” telling reporters in French that they were “unacceptable” and helped spell “the end of this phase of the negotiations.”

But the president rejected those claims, posting on Truth Social: “I would never interfere with Canadians speaking French!”

“In fact, I have never even thought of doing such a stupid thing,” he posted.

With elections in Quebec taking place in October, White House officials say Carney is exaggerating the French language issue. Trump’s trade representative, Jamieson Greer, called the accusations “a funny, fake story,” in a televised CNBC interview on Monday. Greer said that the conflict is over a rule that forces “American tech companies to take their earnings and give a percentage to their competitors in Canada.”

“This lie was made up by a weak and ineffective Prime Minister in an attempt to gain political support, which he has totally lost, from the people of Quebec,” Trump wrote. “I love French Canadians!”

Trump has attacked the national identity of Canada before. He repeated his 51st state jibe against the country so many times shortly after returning to the White House that former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called it “a real thing” last February. And the White House mocked its northern neighbor after Team USA took down the Canadian men’s and women’s hockey teams in the finals at the Olympic Games this February in Milan.

The debate over French language comes days before three federal by-elections on Aug. 31, including in Quebec’s Chicoutimi–Le Fjord. The votes will offer an early test of whether Carney’s decision to walk away from the deal — and his defense of Quebec’s French language and culture — translates into support at the ballot box.

The Liberals are trying to flip the Quebec district from their main political rival in the province, the Bloc Québécois, a federal Quebec separatist party that has long accused Ottawa of watering down French identity.

Canada has two official languages: English and French. About eight million Canadians — 22 percent of the population — consider it their first language. Protecting Quebec culture, including the French language, has become a political flashpoint since Trump returned to office and began his “51st state” provocations. Carney was elected prime minister partly on a promise to protect the French language and other national symbols against Trump.

In Quebec on Monday, Carney told reporters that the French language is a fundamental right, acknowledging in French there is a “huge gap” in perspectives between American and Canadian negotiators.

He said the dispute centered on whether major U.S. streaming companies should be exempt from Canadian laws requiring platforms such as Netflix, Apple, Disney+ to promote Canadian-made television, including French-language programming.

In Canada, there are two laws that attempt to regulate content discoverability on U.S. platforms. There’s the federal government’s Online Streaming Act, which also forces major streaming companies to financially back Canadian content. The second is Quebec’s Bill 109, which forces online streaming services to make French-language content easier to find and access. But the constitutionality of Quebec’s law has come into question because in Canada, it’s the federal government that regulates broadcasters and online streamers — not provinces.

Both bills have been flagged by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer as trade irritants.

In June, Carney announced his Liberal government would issue a new policy direction under the Online Streaming Act to effectively strip the requirement for U.S. tech companies and Hollywood studios to financially back Canadian TV — but the Liberal government has been unwilling to repeal the law altogether.

At the time, Carney refused to characterize it as a capitulation to trade pressures from the Trump administration, saying the original policy would have had streamers pass down costs to consumers through subscriptions.