The Trump administration’s attempt to gloat over its trade war with Canada embarrassingly backfired on Wednesday.
Trade talks between the two countries broke down last Friday, after which the U.S. imposed a 50 percent tariff on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods. Prime Minister Mark Carney responded by imposing retaliatory tariffs, “dollar for dollar.”
“Canada is becoming stronger and less dependent on America. We are already giving ourselves more than they can take away. And we are just getting started,” Carney, 61, said in a televised address Saturday.
The White House tried to portray these developments as a win for the administration.
Quoting its own “article” on X, which claimed that Trump, 80, “is finally ending Canada’s free ride,” the White House posted a photo of a bald eagle with its talons on the neck of a Canada goose, face down on an icy Lake Ontario.
However, the full story of that encounter reveals an outcome unfavorable to the White House: the goose prevailed. And so it didn’t take long for the White House’s post, which had 4.1 million views as of publication, to be met with context from X users.
“This photo is from a documented 20-minute encounter on frozen Lake Ontario where a bald eagle attacked a Canada goose. The goose fought back and survived after the eagle gave up and retreated,” the reader-generated caption read.
Commenters mocked the post by responding with an image of a beaver gnawing down a wooden statue of Trump, while another wrote, “B—h, the goose won and the eagle flew away.”
Indeed, amateur photographer Mervyn Sequeira told Global News how the goose survived the February 2025 fight.
“[The bald eagle] made several attacks on the goose. The goose fought back as best it could,” he recalled.
“At the end of 20 minutes, the bald eagle just gave up and took off,” Sequeira said. “During that time, there were moments when we thought it was over for the goose because of all the equipment that the bald eagle had in terms of talons and whatever else. However, the goose survived the day.”
Sequeira did not immediately respond when asked by the Daily Beast about the White House using his photo, and whether it had permission to do so.
The Trump administration has a lengthy track record of using artists’ music without their consent, and so images would presumably be no different.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
