Ontario premier says he needs ‘to sit down as quickly as possible’ with Trump on tariffs

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Monday that he needs “to sit down as quickly as possible” with President Trump regarding tariffs.

‘We’re seeing inflation happening already, and it’s unnecessary. We don’t need to do this. We can have the two most prosperous countries in the world. We need to sit down as quickly as possible,” Ford told NewsNation’s Nichole Berlie.

The stock market dealt with intense losses Monday, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed with a loss of 890 points, dropping by 2.1 percent. The Nasdaq composite also closed with a loss of 4 percent.

Stocks have dropped steadily since the beginning of the month, due to underwhelming economic data and topsy-turvy Trump administration tariff announcements.

Beginning Monday, Ontario’s government is putting a 25 percent surcharge on electricity exports to three states in the U.S. in response to U.S. tariffs aimed at Canada. The surcharge is set to affect electricity sales for 1.5 million homes and businesses in New York, Michigan and Minnesota, according to the Ontario government.

“When we stick together, we’re unstoppable. We have the critical minerals; we have the energy. We have the aluminum, the steel, the lumber, that our American friends need, and we need Americans as well. It’s been going on for 200 years,” Ford said Monday.

Anxieties around the U.S. economy have risen nationwide in the last week. However, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Monday that he would “just be very wary … of conversations about recession or not, given that we had two negative quarters — that used to be a recession under Biden, and then that wasn’t a recession.”

“I think that what’s going to happen is the first quarter is going to squeak into the positive category, and then the second quarter is going to take off as everybody sees the reality of the tax cuts,” he added.

In an email to The Hill on Monday, a spokesperson for the White House said that “Canada should focus on shoring up border security and cracking down on the drugs that are killing tens of thousands of Americans every year.”

“President Trump is committed to putting Americans and America First, and the Trump administration refuses to put a dollar value on American lives,” Kush Desai added.

Updated at 11:05 p.m. EDT