Peter Navarro, the White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, warned Canada on September 29, 2026 that it would be punished for what he called interference in the midterm elections. Speaking at an economic event hosted by a communications and policy firm in Washington, he told Canadians in the audience, “Please, if you're on K Street, get the hell out of our country.” Then: “Memo to Canada: You cannot do that. That game is up and if you interfere in our elections in Maine or Michigan you will pay even more dearly,” CBC News reported. He also said, “Mark Carney and Doug Ford just talk trash about Donald Trump.”
Navarro did not explain at the event what he meant by interference and declined Politico's question afterward. His own writing shows what he has in mind. In an August 31 post he said Canada is “trying to pick off Susan Collins in Maine's Senate race via targeted retaliation,” and on NewsNation that day he said, “This is election interference by Canada, and this is nothing new. They have more lobbyists than K Street.” The “interference” is Canada's retaliatory tariffs, which took effect September 8 and fell hard on goods from Michigan, Maine and other states with competitive races. Canadian Industry Minister Mélanie Joly had openly called targeting those products “wise and strategic.”
The warning came the same day Trump's import bans on about $1 billion worth of Canadian goods took effect (see Trump Slaps 50 Percent Tariffs on Most Canadian Goods Over Alcohol, Dairy, and Auto Disputes). Sen. Ron Wyden said the administration would stretch the charge to fit anything: “If anybody has a sore on their knee, he's going to say it's election interference.” Retaliatory tariffs and lobbying are ordinary tools of a trade dispute, legal and public; Navarro's remarks recast them as an attack on American elections, from a White House that has made foreign election interference a central midterm theme.
Update (September 30, 2026): the remarks came at a summit hosted by Widehall, a Washington policy consulting firm, where Navarro also said, “Because Canada economically is a rowboat. We're an aircraft carrier. How's that going to end?” Asked about them in British Columbia on September 29, Prime Minister Mark Carney shrugged: “I take note of both comments, how's that?” and, “No response to either.”