Ontario Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne makes a campaign stop at St. Albert Cheese in St. Albert, Ont., on Thursday, May 31, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

LONDON, ONT.— With one more week before the Ontario election, and nothing left to lose, Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne slammed U.S. President Donald Trump as a “bully” with “inexhaustible vanity.”

Early on Thursday, the United States announced plans to slap 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian steel and 10 per cent tariffs on aluminum. The steel tariffs that the U.S. is threatening to impose would hit Ontario particularly hard. Steel is produced in five provinces, but production is concentrated mainly in Ontario.

Wynne called the tariffs “ridiculous” and “unwarranted.”

“I think that we’ve all had just about enough of Donald Trump,” she said at a campaign stop in Orleans, Ont. “He doesn’t seem to get that his bluster and his bullying are costing people real jobs — in his own country, in Canada and in Ontario.”

According to all public opinion polls Wynne is trailing her NDP and Progressive Conservative competitors badly in advance of the June 7 election. She said the time for talking to Trump has past and called on the federal government to respond with the “toughest set of retaliatory measures possible.”

“Our federal government has moved heaven and earth, they’ve cajoled Trump, they have soothed his ego, they have played to his apparently inexhaustible vanity, and they’ve tried to find allies in congress,” she said, adding that she too has taken numerous trips south of the border to build alliances with governors and federal politicians.

“Donald Trump is a bully and the only way to deal with a bully is to stand up and push back.”

She called on NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and Tory Leader Doug Ford to “join” her in calling on Ottawa to retaliate with its own tariffs and put together a package to “protect, support and sustain” the province’s steel-making jobs (Ottawa has since threatened $16.6B in retaliatory tariffs against U.S.).

But the two party leaders are making no such moves, and instead took Wynne’s lead and politicized it further.

Please see my statement on the recent steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the US on Canada: pic.twitter.com/AGeYK9QOZl — Doug Ford (@fordnation) May 31, 2018

In a statement, Ford said the tariffs “will make things even harder for Ontario’s already-struggling steel industry and our workers.”

“We must work domestically to make Ontario and Canada more competitive. After June 7th, as Premier, I will work with the federal government to resolve these trade issues to make Ontario open for business again,” he said. “Only a PC Government will create the business-friendly environment that is needed to bring jobs back to Ontario.”

Ford has previously said he is “absolutely” a Trump supporter and “wouldn’t waver.”

Horwath issued a statement laying the blame for the tariffs with Wynne and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“Whatever Kathleen Wynne and Justin Trudeau have been doing isn’t working – and the consequences are unthinkable,” reads a statement attributed to Horwath.

“President Donald Trump’s dangerous protectionism has no place in the highly-integrated North American steel and aluminum market. It will do damage to multiple industries, across borders,” she said.

“We will have a new premier in just a few days. The first job for that premier must be to take an active role in resolving this conflict, undoing the damage and getting Ontario’s steel and aluminum industries back on the rails. If I am elected premier, I’ll be meeting with Canadian and American officials immediately to do everything I can to secure an exemption to these punitive, devastating tariffs.”

With files from Kelsey Johnson.

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