White House propaganda backfires after goose outlasts eagle attack

'The goose fought back and came out of that, and survived the day,' said photographer Mervyn Sequeira

Published Aug 27, 2026  •  2 minute read

Image tweeted on Wednesday by the White House Photo by screenshot /x.com

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OTTAWA — The Donald Trump White House employed a little avian propaganda to flex on social media this week, but the image they chose doesn’t tell the whole story.

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On Wednesday, a White House official posted an image to its X account of an American eagle standing atop a Canada Goose on a frozen lake, an attempt at commentary at the ongoing trade war the U.S. president is waging against Canada.

But the image, part of a series of photographs taken by photographer Mervyn Sequeira last year in Burlington, doesn’t depict how that encounter turned out.

“It was a 20 minute fight, the eagle kept repeatedly attacking,” Sequeira told CBC News in a March 2025 interview.

“The goose was hissing and pecking the best it could, defending itself.”

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Eagle eventually tires and abandons fight

As the battle wore on, Sequeira said the two birds grew more and more tired. 

“There were times when it seemed hopeless for the goose, the goose was under the eagle, I thought it was over,” he said.

“The goose fought back and came out of that, and survived the day.”

The eagle, clearly frustrated, eventually flew away, leaving the goose with ruffled feathers but otherwise intact.

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Tensions between Canada and U.S. grow

The image was posted as a quote tweet to a previous post made by the White House, proclaiming that President Trump was “ending Canada’s free ride.”

In his latest flex against America’s northern neighbour, Trump on Thursday signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America.

That comes on the heels of the United States — using Canada’s supply management policies in the dairy industry, automotive quotas and individual provincial bans on the sale of U.S. alcohol as justification — enacted 50% tariffs on $28 billion in Canadian goods.

That prompted Ottawa to enact dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs to match the U.S. measures, which go into effect on Sept. 8.

Despite both Canada and the U.S. saying late last week that a deal had been reached in principle, the talks unravelled after American officials allegedly introduced a slew of eleventh-hour demands, ones that Prime Minister Mark Carney warned would severely impact key Canadian industries.

Among these last-minute additions were passages restricting Ottawa’s ability to negotiate independent trade deals with third-party nations, alongside demands for concessions on Canadian cultural and French-language policies, as well as streaming regulations.

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X: @bryanpassifiume

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