Trump says 50% aircraft tariff threat against Canada was triggered by friend's failed attempt to buy a Gulfstream jet

President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, during an event marking the summer travel season, that his threat of a 50 percent tariff on aircraft Canada sells into the United States began as a personal favour for a wealthy friend who could not buy a Gulfstream jet because Canada had not certified it. Trump said the friend told him Canada was refusing to certify Gulfstream jets while letting the Bombardier Global Express, a domestic competitor, operate freely, and connected Trump directly with Gulfstream's chief executive.

The Gulfstream CEO told Trump the company had spent roughly $60 million over approximately nine years trying to obtain Canadian certification without success. "So I immediately said, 'I'm putting a major tariff on Bombardier and other things that they sent until they're certified,'" Trump said. He described a subsequent call from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, whom he did not name in the remarks, asking about the problem, and said everything was certified within 30 minutes of that call.

Trump appeared to be recounting events from earlier this year. On January 29 he posted on Truth Social warning that Canada was "effectively prohibiting the sale of Gulfstream products in Canada" and threatening a 50 percent tariff on all aircraft sold into the United States if the situation was not "immediately corrected." Transport Canada certified the Gulfstream G500 and G600 on February 16 and the G700 and G800 on February 23 — 26 days after the post, not within two hours as Trump implied.

Asked whether trade talks with Ottawa would resume, Trump claimed the United States loses "anywhere from 60 to $100 billion" a year in trade deficits with Canada. Data from the U.S. Trade Representative's office shows the U.S. goods trade deficit with Canada was $48.3 billion in 2025, down 21 percent from the prior year, with a $27.7 billion services surplus producing a combined gap of roughly $21 billion. Trump also repeated a claim that American banks are effectively barred from operating in Canada; 16 U.S. bank subsidiaries and branches currently operate there, including Citibank, present since 1919. He declined to say whether or when negotiations would resume, describing Carney as a "nice guy" while calling Ontario Premier Doug Ford a "slob."

This case shows how a single aircraft maker's certification backlog in one country can be escalated, through a direct presidential channel, into a tariff threat covering an entire national aircraft trade flow. Gulfstream's roughly $60 million spent over about nine years pursuing Canadian type certification illustrates how slow or stalled regulatory approval can become a trade-policy flashpoint once it reaches the right ear, rather than staying a routine airworthiness matter between a manufacturer and a civil aviation authority.

Certification timelines matter because they gate market access directly: an aircraft cannot be sold or operated in a jurisdiction until its type is approved there, so a delay of years functions as an effective barrier even without any formal trade measure. Transport Canada's approvals of the G500, G600, G700 and G800 within weeks of the January 29 tariff threat show how quickly a certification process can move once political pressure is applied, a pace at odds with the years Gulfstream described spending beforehand.

What remains unresolved is whether trade talks between Washington and Ottawa resume, and on what terms, since Trump declined to give a timeline. The next marker to watch is any formal reopening of negotiations or a fresh tariff announcement, since the certification dispute that triggered this threat has already been resolved on the regulatory side.