'Hostile act': Trump threatens EU with tariffs over Canada associate-membership proposal

BREAKING: Trump threatens the EU with tariffs over its proposal to make Canada the bloc's first 'associate member', calling the plan a 'hostile act'.

Canada, an EU member. Trump just called the very idea a hostile act.

Ursula von der Leyen used her state of the union address in Strasbourg to open the door to Canada becoming the bloc's first ever associate member, the deepest tie the EU has ever offered a non-European country. Landing in North Carolina, Trump told reporters the plan was laughable, said Canada has been a terrible trade partner, and threatened very serious tariffs, or stopping trade with Europe on many things.

Remember the backdrop. Trump already has a 50 percent tariff on Canadian goods and trade talks with Ottawa have collapsed. So Prime Minister Mark Carney has been shopping for new friends, and Brussels is offering defence, tech, energy, even the Arctic.

The strange part is that associate membership doesn't exist in EU treaties, and several member states were reportedly blindsided. Trump is threatening a trade war over a club category nobody has invented yet.

This is Kateryna Kovalenko, reporting for HIT.