They were not joke and no one laughed at them either. They were posturing and trying to be threatening. They were coupled with start of actual trade war and intentional attempts to weaken Canada.
Calling them jokes is just a lie, retroactively trying to make it better.
They were an objective joke/troll, but multiple psychological studies on certain mindset patterns under stress show that some are intellectually unable to get certain types of jokes.
It is irrelevant. It was not a joke and it was coupled with hostile actions. Calling it a joke is massively dishonest and no one laughed or considered it funny at the time
Calling them jokes is just a lie, retroactively trying to make it better.