US President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he will use “economic force” to make Canada a part of the United States, a comment that attracted sharp reaction from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“No,” Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago in Florida when asked if he is considering military force to annex and acquire Canada. Over the past few weeks, Trump has asserted that he wants to make Canada part of the United States and its 51st state. Many times, he has been mocking Trudeau as the Governor of Canada.
“(I will be using) economic force because Canada and the United States, that would really be something. You get rid of that artificially drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like, and it would also be much better for national security. Don’t forget, we basically protect Canada,” Trump said.
Trudeau, who resigned as the prime minister of Canada a day earlier, responded sharply on social media. “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would 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 biggest trading and security partner,” Trudeau said.
Trump said he loves the people of Canada, but the United States can no longer financially support Canada.
“I love the Canadian people, they’re great. But we’re spending hundreds of billions a year to protect it. We’re spending hundreds of billions a year to take care of Canada. We lose in trade deficits we’re losing massive — we don’t need their cars. You know, they make 20 per cent of our cars. We don’t need that. I’d rather make them in Detroit,” he asserted.
We don’t need the cars; we don’t need their lumber. We have massive fields of lumber. We don’t need their lumber. We have to un-restrict them because stupid people put restrictions on, but I can do that with an executive order. We don’t need anything they have. We don’t need their dairy products, we have more than they have. We don’t need anything,” he said.
“So, why are we losing USD 200 billion a year and more to protect Canada? And I said that to, as I called him, Governor Trudeau, I said, listen, what would happen if we didn’t subsidise you, … Here’s what we have, we have a right not to help them with their financial difficulties because we owe USD 36 trillion too. We’re going to start knocking it out pretty fast, but we’re going to be able to do it because of energy and other things. But why are we supporting a country USD 200 billion plus a year?” he said.
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