Vice President Vance took a dig at Canada during a campaign speech for Sen. Susan Collins on Monday: <\/p>\n
VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: Canada and China have been the two worst countries when it comes to trade policy anywhere in the world. What a shame that is. China, of course, you expect. They’re our biggest economic competitor. I would expect that from China. I would not expect that from Canada. We have to remember Canada is a state-sorry, Freudian slip. That was actually an accident. Canada is a country that has underinvested in its military, that quite literally would get invaded by a foreign country were it not for the umbrella of protection provided by the United States of America. And so how does Canada actually respond to that? By treating the people of Maine fairly? No. They apply ridiculous tariffs and other non-tariff duties on Maine products coming into Canada, and they don’t expect Maine or anybody else to fight back. We’re sick of that. We’re actually going to fight back against unfair trade practices, whether it’s coming from China or Canada. And let me just give you a very, very simple and concrete example. If you buy dairy-cheese, butter, milk-that comes from Canada into Maine, you probably are buying a product that has 0% tariffs on it, okay? And by the way, if Canada applied 0%, that would be one thing. But, you know, if a Maine farmer sends dairy products into Canada, they could be paying as much as a 250% tariff. Now, how is it fair to the farmers of Maine that they pay 250% when the Canadian farmers pay nothing? That unfairness is something that we just have to fix. And here’s what happened with the most recent round of negotiations. They’re still ongoing, and I want to be respectful of the process, but we know that Canada allows itself to be used as a backdoor for Chinese goods. They treat Chinese goods more fairly than they do the goods that come from the people of Maine. It’s insanity. And what we’ve said to Canada is: Stop it. Apply a basic principle of fairness to the trade that you’re doing between North Dakota and Canada, between Maine and Canada. And what happened? At the very end, they came in with a bunch of unreasonable last-minute demands. I frankly thought we had a deal. I think that we should have a deal. But I think that we need to send a message loud and clear to the prime minister of Canada: Stop taking advantage of the people of Maine. Stop taking advantage of America. It’s over. We expect fairness in our trade policy. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n