New Delhi, Aug. 1 -- Canada's announcement it will recognize a Palestinian state "will make it very hard" for the United States to reach a trade agreement with its northern neighbor, President Donald Trump said.

Trump's threat, posted early Thursday on his social media platform, is the latest way he has sought to use his trade war to coerce countries on unrelated issues. And when other allies had raised the matter of Palestinian statehood, the Republican president had been ambivalent.

He said this week that he did not mind that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was taking the position that the United Kingdom would recognize a Palestinian state in September unless Israel agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza, allowed the United Nations to brin...