President Trump’s Transportation Secretary and Acting Administrator of NASA, Sean Duffy, criticized the Canadian government after its Prime Minister, Mark Carney, rejected a trade agreement with the Trump administration. Carney said the proposed agreement “asked too much and offered too little.”
Duffy, who has not served in the U.S. military, told Fox News that Canada is “a country that doesn’t have a military… and so to think that they’re gonna go to war with Donald Trump and actually win that war with the U.S., I think it’s foolish on their part.”
[NOTE: The Canadian Armed Forces comprise approximately 100,000 personnel (full-time and reservists). Last year the nation met NATO’s defense spending goal of 2% of GDP, “investing more than $63 billion in defence across the Department of National Defence (DND), the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), and other government partners,” which it said was “driven by targeted investments in military personnel, readiness, equipment, and infrastructure, as well as in the defence industrial base and in eligible defence expenditures across government, consistent with NATO reporting practices.”]
Mr Secretary, please stop embarrassing us. I served in Kandahar Afghanistan in 2009-2010 alongside Canadian Soldiers. They were skilled, courageous, and effective. We were lucky to be on the same side with them. https://t.co/IUldAI9BD6
— Ben Hodges (@general_ben) August 23, 2026
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, who served as commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and now serves as the NATO Senior Mentor for Logistics, responded to Duffy’s comments on social media. Hodges, a 1980 West Point graduate, wrote: “Mr Secretary, please stop embarrassing us. I served in Kandahar Afghanistan in 2009-2010 alongside Canadian Soldiers. They were skilled, courageous, and effective. We were lucky to be on the same side with them.”
[NOTE: CBC reported when Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan ended in 2014 that “Canadian commandos, hunting al-Qaeda, were the first troops to hit the ground in late 2001 and they were followed by as many as 40,000 more rotating through different campaigns, including the five-year combat mission in Kandahar.”]
Sadly, the 158
soldiers killed and thousands injured were not worth the cost of defending our former allies and neighbours. I wouldn’t have thought that a decade ago. Let it be a lesson: serve and sacrifice for the , and they’ll turn around and piss in your face. pic.twitter.com/hoBjt9Ru1l — Matt Worthington
(@MattyWorthy32B) August 23, 2026
Retired Canadian Afghanistan War veteran Matt Worthington also replied, with photos from a Canadian dignity transfer: “Sadly, the 158 Canadian soldiers killed and thousands injured were not worth the cost of defending our former allies and neighbours. I wouldn’t have thought that a decade ago. Let it be a lesson: serve and sacrifice for the U.S., and they’ll turn around and [expletive] in your face.”
U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), an Iraq War veteran, also commented on Duffy’s assertion: “The Duffman is so dumb. Canada fought alongside the US in Afghanistan. If he walks through many bases including the Pentagon he will see Canadian forces working with us. We are never going to go ‘war’ with Canada just because Trump is a bad negotiator. He sounds like an idiot.”