On Tuesday (January 7, 2025), US President-elect Donald Trump said he would use “economic force” to make Canada part of the United States, a comment that drew a sharp reaction from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. When asked by reporters at Mar-a-Lago in Florida if he was considering military force to annex and acquire Canada, he said, “No.” Over the past few weeks, Mr Trump has confirmed that he wants to make Canada part of the United States and its 51st state. At times, he has mocked Mr Trudeau as a Canadian senator. “(I would) use financial force for Canada and the United States, it would really be something. You break free from that deceptively drawn line and you see what it looks like, and it would be much better for national security as well. Don’t ignore, we essentially defend Canada,” Mr Trump said.
Mr Trudeau, who surrendered as Canada’s prime minister a day earlier, reacted strongly on social media. “There is no possibility that Canada will become part of the United States,” he said in a post on X. “Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s largest trade and security partners,” Mr Trudeau said. ‘Can no longer help Canada economically’ Mr Trump said he loved the Canadian people, but the United States could no longer help Canada economically. “I love the Canadian people, they’re wonderful. But we’re investing hundreds of billions every year to make sure that we’re doing it. We’re investing hundreds of billions every year to take care of Canada. We’re losing in exchange losses, we’re losing a huge – we don’t need their cars. You know, they make 20 percent of our cars. We don’t need that. I’d rather make them in Detroit or maybe I’ll make them here,” he stressed. “We don’t need the cars; we don’t need their strolling. We have too many big stumbling areas. We don’t need their strolling. We have to remove the ban on them because stupid people put the ban on them, but I can do that with the official system. We don’t need what they have. We don’t need their dairy products, we have more than them. We don’t need anything,” he said. So, why are we losing $200 billion and more every year to keep Canada safe? And I said this, as I said to him, to Representative Trudeau, in a phone call, I said, listen, what would happen if we didn’t sponsor you… This is what we have, we have the right not to help them with their budgetary challenges because we also owe them $36 trillion. We’re going to start to eliminate that very quickly, but we’re going to be able to do that because of energy and other things. But why are we giving over $200 billion a year in aid to one country?
