WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump said Friday that Canada is opposing the potential construction of his "Golden Dome" missile defense system on the Danish island of Greenland.

"Canada is against the Golden Dome being built over Greenland, even though the Golden Dome would protect Canada," Trump said on his Truth Social platform. "Instead, they voted in favor of doing business with China, who will 'eat them up' within the first year!"

Trump was likely alluding to Canada's announcement last week that it had reached a trade agreement in principle with Beijing that will ease tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for China relaxing tariffs on Canadian agricultural exports.

The Canadian EV tariffs were imposed in tandem with the US in 2024 in a bid to push back on what critics said is China's practice of market dumping, or saturating a foreign market with heavily-subsidized domestic products, in this case, electric vehicles.

Relations between the US and Canada have soured greatly since Trump came to office last January, however, as Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to counter tariffs imposed by the US president during his first year in office, and resists Trump's appeals for Canada to become the 51st US state.

Amid the deteriorating ties, Trump said Thursday that he was withdrawing Canada's invitation to join his "Board of Peace" in apparent retaliation for comments Carney delivered to the World Economic Forum.

“Great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited," he said. "You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit of integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination."