Obama turns Canada tariff joke into a debt warning

The Cleveland rally clip moves from laughter about America's northern neighbor to criticism of Trump's fiscal promises.

Channel: CBC News · CanadaStory of October 27, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? One of CBC News's most watched videos since yesterday, with 130,228 views.

CBC News: The news division of the CBC, Canada's public broadcaster. 4.8M subscribers and 3.4B views.

Obama mocks Trump for hitting Canada with tariffs

Barack Obama's joke about Canada ends with a more pointed charge: Donald Trump's tariffs have not delivered the fiscal improvement he promised.

In a rally clip carried by CBC News, Canada's public broadcaster, the former US president describes Canada as a "well-known evil empire," drawing laughter and applause when he names the country. He cites maple syrup and Martin Short as Canadian contributions, calls Canadians friendly neighbors and questions why Trump is picking a fight with them.

Obama then shifts to the federal balance sheet. He argues that, rather than bringing down deficits through tariffs, the United States is carrying debt of roughly $40 trillion. That is Obama's criticism of the administration, not an economic assessment supplied by the clip.

The footage is labeled Cleveland, Ohio, and was posted on October 25. It comes amid continuing trade negotiations: in separate coverage on Monday, Prime Minister Mark Carney said the United States was moving closer to Canada's position in the talks.

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Where next?

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The numbers

The clip drew about 130,000 views since yesterday, placing it first among the new Shorts on Canada's leading news channels.

subscribers

4,780,000

no significant change in the last 7 days

total views

3,363,071,105

views per day

2,485,672

typical day: 2,436,931

the video

views

249,744

likes

3,396

days online

2

subscribers: this channel and similar channels

TMZ

5,200,000

Daily Mail World

5,030,000

Global News

4,930,000

CBC News

4,780,000

Associated Press

4,700,000

Reuters

4,360,000

As of October 27, 2026 · Data source: Trari Social News, Trari Traffic Trends and Ranking Platform, Google YouTube

Subscriber, view, like and comment counts are YouTube's. Rates, usual days, rankings, comparisons and categories are Trari's own calculations.