January 1, BOMBSHELL: White House Freezes Canadian Cooperation As Trade War Escalates

Wyatt’s Take

• Trump’s DOJ just put the brakes on all antitrust cooperation with Canada — no warning, no explanation to the bureaucrats caught off guard
• This comes as tensions explode between Washington and Ottawa over Trump’s tariffs and his bold renaming of Lake Ontario to Lake America
• Canada’s threatening massive retaliation tariffs, but Trump’s holding firm — America First means putting our workers ahead of so-called allies who’ve taken advantage for decades

The U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division received orders this week to immediately stop all collaboration with the Canadian government as the trade fight between the two nations reaches a boiling point.

Lynda Marshall, who runs the antitrust division’s international section, sent out orders Wednesday telling officials to freeze all cooperation on cases and policy discussions with Canadian authorities. The directive came without explanation, according to internal emails.

By Friday, section chiefs in the antitrust division were scrambling to compile lists showing every area where they’d been working with Canada. They had until end of business to get it done.

The DOJ pushed back on reports about the freeze, claiming in a statement that the “alleged direction was never given to anyone.”

According to the department, they simply asked staff to “temporarily hold off on a scheduled meeting on a specific investigation until the DOJ’s antitrust team had more time to prepare.”

The move comes as decades of cozy relations between the U.S. and Canada crumble under the weight of President Donald Trump’s trade offensive against Ottawa. Trump recently signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to “Lake America” — a symbolic jab that sent Canadian elites into a meltdown.

While the name change only applies to the U.S. federal government and doesn’t force Canada, international bodies, or U.S. states to adopt it, the order piles onto mounting tensions that erupted when Trump returned to the White House in January 2025.

The trade war has already slapped tariffs on tens of billions of dollars in cross-border commerce. Working Americans are finally seeing a president willing to fight for their jobs instead of rubber-stamping deals that shipped manufacturing north.

Canada announced it would hit back with retaliatory tariffs starting September 8 in response to Trump’s new 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods that kicked in last month.

Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada “will match Washington’s new tariffs dollar for dollar in order to protect Canadian workers, farmers, families, and businesses.”

Why It Matters

For too long, Washington treated Canada like family while Canadian politicians quietly took advantage of American generosity. Trump’s showing that even longtime partners need to play fair or face consequences. Working families in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania have watched jobs vanish to Canada for years while politicians smiled and did nothing. Those days are over — and it’s about time someone fought for the American worker instead of globalist trade deals that only benefit coastal elites and foreign governments.