Remember when cereal came with prizes, Caitlyn Jenner peed standing up, and Canada was just our shy but reliable upstairs neighbor known for having universal healthcare, hockey, and ham they insisted on calling bacon? God, we were young.
Today the U.S. is in an actual war with our childhood BFF—a trade war, but still—involving billions of dollars and levels of pettiness previously confined to HOA meetings. Our Treasury Secretary is openly roasting Canada’s military forces, our president has renamed Lake Ontario Lake America, and Maple Leaf Prime Minister Mark Carney is demanding—in actual seriousness—that America “stop doing memes.”
NARRATOR: “Alas, America did not, in fact, stop doing memes.”
Welcome to modern-day diplomacy, where Uncle Sam is the enormous eighth-grader holding Canada’s backpack over its head as Canada insists it doesn’t even like the stupid backpack while also trying repeatedly and unsuccessfully to snatch it back.
Teddy Roosevelt is rolling over in his grave.
This didn’t start last month and it’s not about bacon or a dead-named lake or an AI-generated cartoon. Canada is just one stop on Trump’s much bigger tariff tour—the one based on his hit single, “For Far Too Long America Has Been Getting Ripped Off by Every Country in the Entire World (Including the One That Shares Our Longest Border, Buys a Ton of Our Stuff, and Has Spent Most of Its History Apologizing When We Bump Into Them).” It was yugely popular at home, but overseas sales have been disappointing, TBH.
The tour actually kicked off during Trump’s first term, with steel and aluminum tariffs that hit Canada alongside everybody else. He’s been workshopping the setlist ever since—renegotiating NAFTA into the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and slapping import taxes on washing machines, solar panels, and anything else that arrived here speaking metric.
It wasn’t a game so much as a philosophy: trade deficits aren’t just numbers—they’re proof you’re getting ripped off. And tariffs are how you protect American industry by making it more expensive for everyone else to screw us. It’s not the craziest theory ever floated.
When Trump roared back for an encore in 2025, he began layering new tariffs onto Canadian goods under the banner of border security and fentanyl. Which is a little like calling the cops on your neighbor’s golden retriever for pooping too close to your hydrangeas: Canada’s contribution to the American fentanyl supply is so microscopic it barely registers. But “I’m imposing tariffs because I’ve been a tariff guy since 1988 and finally have the leverage” plays worse on Truth Social than “foreign poison is killing your kids.” So fentanyl it was.
What followed was an exhausting 18-month game of economic Whac-A-Mole: Trump imposed tariffs, Canada retaliated. Trump piled on more tariffs, Canada retaliated in a different font. Courts swatted some down, shrugged at others. Trump went rummaging through the federal statute drawer for another legal lever, somebody got offended, negotiations stalled, resumed, and stalled again. All that was left was for one side to start blowing leaves across the border.
Somewhere in there, Trump suggested Canada could solve the whole problem by becoming America’s 51st state—a proposal about as popular among Canadians as rabid cats and parking police. By this summer, even the USMCA—the trade agreement Trump negotiated and celebrated during his first term—was back on the operating table. Apparently to POTUS, the only thing better than negotiating a historic trade deal is doing it twice. And then making a meme about it.
The devolution of North American trade relations reached its ridiculous pinnacle last month when Trump—frustrated that Canadian negotiators had the audacity to keep negotiating—slapped 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian imports. Canada responded with retaliatory tariffs on more than 700 categories of American goods—including Wisconsin Cheddar, Pennsylvania steel, and Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Because nothing says “we’re serious” like making middle-aged dads pay more for their weekend cosplay.
Behold, the funniest Trump impersonator on the interweb and the most hilarious take on Lake America and “Snow Mexico” ever written and recorded.
Chef’s kiss, my good sir:
Here’s the part where the casual news consumer might be thinking, “Look at Canada, getting all sassy and fighting back. You go, girl!” And they are. Except this is hardly a fair fight. The U.S. economy is roughly $30 trillion; Canada’s is about $2 trillion. Nearly three-quarters of Canadian exports go to America, while barely one percent of American output winds up over our northern border. In other words, we can afford to lose Canada as a customer a whole lot more than Canada can afford to lose us.
Meanwhile, Carney is basically behaving like a toddler refusing to eat dinner because you took away his juice box. Eventually he’s going to get hungry and by then, the chicken nuggets will be cold. And unfortunately for Carney, Trump has the keys to the kitchen.
So because Trump is a bully or to retaliate for Canada’s relentless retaliation—or maybe because the Gulf of America rebrand was such a hit—POTUS signed an executive order directing his administration to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America. The EO makes the new name official for federal purposes, although Canada and the rest of humanity remain free to call it whatever they’d like.
Apple and Google Maps have already made the change for U.S. users, and Canada responded the way only Canada could: by erecting a tasteful lakeside sign that reads “Lake Ontario Now and Always” in English and French.
Take *that*, Mr. Trump! Eh, please?
When asked about the spiraling diplomatic deterioration, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent blamed the Canadian Prime Minister for the circus. “I mean, we’re not at war with Canada,” Bessent added. “How are we going to be at war with Canada? What, they’re going to take their two submarines from the Edmonton Mall and sic them on us?”
And there, right beneath the hoagie joke, lies the problem for Carney. He can’t out-tariff Trump. He can’t out-threaten him. He can’t outspend him. And God knows he can’t out-troll him. All he can do is keep swinging away and hope Trump gets bored holding the backpack.
Call me crazy, but I don’t think the Harleys are going to fix this.
P.S. Why My Generation Isn’t a Bunch of Wankers (a short story): It’s 1975. There are four siblings and exactly one glow-in-the-dark sticky hand in that box of Trix. The rule is “no fishing.” The sticky hand has to organically fall into your bowl. If it doesn’t and you cry, your mom will give you something to cry about. The end.
Some generous supporters who aren’t fans of online payment platforms have asked if I could include a mailing address for donations, so here you go:
Jenna McCarthy, POPME
POB 342111
Lakeway, TX 78734
(***If you mail a contribution, kindly DM me so that I can add you to the paid subs list!)
I am Canadian and I know this is a fight with our WEF overlords. They have been scamming the American people for decades. We have been ruled deceptively. I’ll use a line from Hunger Games. “Remember who the real enemy is. “
“Donald Ducks”. I am rolling!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣