Canada’s outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has told a group of business leaders he believes President Donald Trump might be serious about annexing his country.
Trudeau suggested Trump has floated the idea of taking over Canada and making it the “51st state” because he wants to access the country’s critical minerals.
“Mr Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing,” the prime minister said.
His comments were made behind closed doors at a Canada-US Economic Summit in Toronto, but were captured in part by a microphone and were reported on by several Canadian media outlets.
The summit was attended by more than 100 business leaders and public policy experts, and was hosted by the Canadian government’s newly created advisory council on Canada-US relations.
Trudeau’s comments come after Trump threatened Canada with a 25% tariff on all its exports to the US, with the exception of energy exports that would be taxed at a lower rate of 10%.
The tariffs were to be imposed earlier this week, but Trump granted Canada – as well as Mexico, who had been threatened with similar tariffs – a last-minute reprieve for 30 days in exchange for more efforts to bolster security at their shared borders.
Trump had suggested repeatedly, both in posts on his social media platform Truth Social and in remarks to reporters, that Canada could become a US state instead to avoid the tariffs. He has also referred to the country’s prime minister as “Governor Trudeau”.
“What I’d like to see – Canada become our 51st state,” Trump said earlier this week at the Oval Office, when asked about what concessions Canada could offer.
Trump first mentioned the idea of absorbing Canada at a dinner with Trudeau in December, shortly after he first threatened the tariffs. At the time, Canadian officials dismissed it as a joke.
But Trudeau’s comments on Friday suggest a shift in how Canada might be perceiving Trump’s remarks.
An Ipsos poll conducted in January shows that the majority of Canadians (80%) oppose their country becoming part of the US, and would never vote ‘yes’ in any referendum on the issue.
Such a move would also require the approval of both chambers of Congress in the US, and would need a supermajority of 60 votes to get through the Senate.
In Canada, Trump’s threats have caused nationwide anxiety. Around three-quarters of Canadian exports are sold to the US, and steep tariffs on those goods could deeply hurt Canada’s economy and risk thousands of job losses.
Some provincial politicians have been launching “buy local” campaigns to encourage Canadians to spend their money at home instead of the US. Some Canadians have cancelled trips to south of the border in protest.
But officials have also tried to push closer ties with the US in the wake of the tariffs, saying that Canada was open to establishing a Canada-US alliance on energy and critical minerals.
Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, who has been in Washington DC this week to meet his American counterparts, said closer collaboration would be a “win-win” for both countries.
At Friday’s summit, Trudeau said Canada was facing the possibility of “a more challenging, long-term political situation with the United States”, and must find ways to strengthen its own economy and trade ties in the years ahead.
By BBC News
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