Canada Retaliates With Tariffs as Trump Resorts to Posting AI Slop

President Trump spent his Labor Day weekend posting a bunch of artificial intelligence slop from his private New Jersey golf course—while Canada on Tuesday imposed tariffs on about $20 billion worth of U.S. goods. 

On Sunday, Trump posted an AI image of himself and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney playing hockey in their respective country’s jerseys, while Trump stands over the prime minister—presumably after checking him. A speech bubble from Trump reads, “Get up, Governor,” an insult Trump has used in the past to attack Canada’s sovereignty. 

Then on Monday, Trump posted a map depicting the entirety of North America as part of the United States. 

And on that same day, he posted an ad for Fannie Mae using an AI-generated monologue for his own voice, instead of just talking. 

While that all happened, Canada struck back in the trade war that Trump started, imposing taxes on American products that will further erode relations, drive up costs, and hurt Canadians and Americans alike. The tariffs will hit aluminum, automotive parts, Kentucky bourbon, and steel, and will be as high as 50 percent.

The automotive industry will be hit particularly hard, as Canada is the largest foreign market for American vehicles. This all comes as Trump has consistently disregarded perhaps our closest ally. He disparages Carney, insists that Canada should be a U.S. state, and now has entered this cycle of retaliatory tariffs that has no real end in sight. It’s as if he’s asleep at the wheel, stirring awake every so often only to post incendiary AI content while Americans suffer the consequences of his actions.  

The White House celebrated a workerless Labor Day on Monday by posting a slew of artificial intelligence slop videos.

Donald Trump’s team posted Monday to celebrate the “workers and products that are proudly MADE IN AMERICA,” but the video they included didn’t feature a single American worker.

Instead, the apparently AI-generated video depicted a fully automated production line making a marker emblazoned with Trump’s name. In March, Trump sidetracked a Cabinet meeting with a rant claiming to have replaced the White House’s $1,000 ballpoint pens with Sharpies he paid $5 a pop for.

The White House also posted an AI-generated video depicting Trump using a Green Lantern ring, which has the power to create anything a person can imagine. Of course, the president used it to prevent illegal border crossings, conjure “American manufacturing,” and summon a fleet of military planes. The video credited Trump with powers of limitless creation, while yet again removing any trace of American workers.

The White House then posted an AI-generated video showing the shoes of different kinds of American workers as they walk through fields, offices, and busy streets. But again, the video featured no real American workers, just computer-generated feet.

The White House’s official Labor Day video was somehow even worse. The 90-second campaign-style advertisement managed to celebrate Trump rather than actual American workers.

“After so many years of politicians who sold out the working men and women of our country, we finally have a president who puts American workers first,” Trump said, congratulating himself in the video’s voiceover.

The video never said what Trump actually did, but emphasized his supposedly incredible support for autoworkers, ranchers, and farmers. In reality, autoworkers have rejected Trump’s escalating trade war with Canada, and farmers and ranchers have condemned his decisions to increase imports of foreign beef and undermine FDA-inspected processing sites.

The Republican Party’s expensive “Trump-a-palooza” is doling out some of its tickets for free—though the option doesn’t actually guarantee entry.

The bizarre affair, which will take place on September 9 and 10 in Dallas, does not have a single point of entry or a dedicated Texas delegation; House members have been asked to pay a minimum of $25,000 to get in the door with a guest. But that’s really the bottom of the barrel: Better packages have been priced closer to $100,000.

But wannabe ticket holders in the Lone Star State have found that there are a multitude of options to enter the Texas event, either by invitation or by a regional lottery. Tim Bates, a longtime Collin County Republican precinct chair, told The Dallas Morning News that he wasn’t going to pay $5,000 to enter the event. So when he received an email from the state Republican Party about obtaining a free ticket, he passed the information along to his fellow precinct chairs instead.

“More local people will be able to go to fill the venue,” he told the local daily.

But the ticket comes with a disclaimer: Entry is not guaranteed if the arena reaches capacity.

Most major party conventions are centered on a specific item of business, such as formally nominating a presidential candidate. But this function will offer no such line items. Instead, the event has been billed as a big Republican party, which has left the definition of who’s allowed to attend a lot looser.

It will be the first GOP midterm convention in American history. Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance are both expected to deliver speeches to the conservative assembly, though low party enthusiasm has threatened the optics of the event.

The unprecedented conference was thrown together at the eleventh hour in an attempt to boost Republican candidates ahead of a contentious midterm cycle, but dozens of Republicans have decided to forgo the gathering altogether, fearful that showing face at the event—which offers Trump yet another stage to say or do anything he desires—could blow up in their faces and damage their odds back home.

The whole ordeal could backfire on the president too. In 1978, a Democratic midterm convention that was intended to rally party support ultimately turned the party against President Jimmy Carter, offering a vehicle for then-Senator Ted Kennedy to announce his opposition to the president and his agenda.

“There was a lot of hostility to the president there,” Elaine Kamarck, who attended as a 28-year-old working for the Democratic National Committee, told The Guardian. “The Democrats have sworn ever since never to do anything this stupid again.”

Corey Lewandowski, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s close adviser and rumored boyfriend, used his position at the department to attempt to make some money for himself.

The Wall Street Journal reports that while Noem was still part of President Trump’s Cabinet, Lewandowski took the opportunity to try and make side deals to personally benefit himself.

For example, Lewandowski approached representatives of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, proposing that the governments could hire him on the side to help with any issues that the DHS handled concerning the two countries, such as visas. Officials from the two countries thought the idea was unusual, as they already had relationships with other Trump administration officials, and turned down Lewandowski.

Lewandowski’s proposal appears to have been a corrupt effort to sell government services for personal gain. He already was in a powerful position at DHS, overseeing the agency’s billions of dollars in federal contracts. He also had authority over tariff collection, and decision-making power over aspects of border security and immigration enforcement as a “special government employee,” which gave him some ability to engage in personal business.

Lewandowski denied any wrongdoing to the Journal, with one of his representatives denying that he “sought contracts with foreign governments.” The same spokesperson added that Lewandowski “adamantly denies ever demanding any payment or compensation from any potential, former, or current government contractor or seeking or soliciting or entering contracts with foreign governments while volunteering his time with DHS.”

Lewandowski was unpopular in DHS under Noem’s tenure, and appeared to stay on far beyond his allowance as a special government employee, with an extensive portfolio of responsibilities. His relationship with Noem was the worst-kept secret in Washington, and had its own set of possible ethical violations, which have come under scrutiny from Democrats in Congress. These latest revelations will only increase his corrupt reputation, as well as that of his paramour Noem.

President Trump has drawn the ire of Iceland after posting a map depicting the country as part of the United States.

Along with Iceland, the image also included Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean draped in the U.S. flag. The Truth Social post, made on Labor Day, was captionless.

The post—paternalistic at best, colonial at worst—raised enough alarm in Iceland to lead the country’s foreign minister, Thorgerdur Gunnarsdottir, to summon U.S. Ambassador Billy Long. Gunnarsdottir later told RUV, Iceland’s national broadcasting service, that “it was made clear at the meeting that the post was completely inappropriate.” Other Icelandic leaders felt similarly, comparing their experience to that of Greenland, which Trump has threatened to annex since he returned to office.

“It is not good to be an enemy of the United States, but it is even worse to be its friend,” alternate city councilor Stefán Pálsson told RUV. “What is shocking about the way Greenland has been treated is not really that the United States behaves like this towards another country, but simply that we are not used to it being done to us.”

“I hope, given how this took over the debate in Greenland, that we do not end up in the same place and that we do not allow Trump to set the agenda for the debate here,” Federation of State and Municipal Employees Chair Sonja Þorbergsdóttir said. “But of course this is disrespectful and this is not how civilized nations should behave towards one another.”

The post was yet another example of Trump’s recklessness eroding the seriousness and legitimacy of U.S soft power.