President Donald Trump reiterated yet again his desire to take Canada as the US’s 51st state – and added that it could be the ‘greatest’ of them all.
Trump doubled down on his intentions to take not only Canada, but also Greenland, while sitting next to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office.
The US president said ‘Canada only works as a state’ because America is ‘spending $200billion a year to subsidize’ it.
‘As a state it would be one of the great states anywhere,’ said Trump on Thursday afternoon.
He continued that combining the US and Canada would create ‘the most incredible country visually’ and claimed that someone a long time ago ‘drew an artificial line right through’ the two nations and that it doesn’t make sense.
‘It’s so perfect as a great and cherished state. Keeping “O Canada”, the national anthem. I love it, I think it’s great, keep it,’ Trump said.
That’s when he appeared to suggest that a state of Canada would be greater than any of the US’s existing 50: ‘But it’ll be for the state, one of our greatest states. Maybe our greatest state.’
Trump said that he loves Canada and its people and that he has many Canadian friends, but that the US can no longer continue to be ‘helpful’ subsidizing its northern neighbor.
He said ‘we don’t need anything’ from Canada including its lumber, energy or cars.
‘Now there will be a little disruption but it won’t be very long. But they need us, we really don’t need them,’ Trump concluded.
‘And we have to do this, I’m sorry, we have to do this.’
Two days earlier, Trump railed against Canada after its state of Ontario imposed a 25% tariff on electricity into the US states of New York, Michigan and Minnesota.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that the US cannot keep subsidizing Canada ‘to the tune of more than 200 Billion Dollars’ and that ‘the only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State’.
Amid a trade war with Canada, Trump has repeatedly raised that figure, but the trade deficit was actually $67.9billion in 2023 and represented a small fraction of America’s global trade deficit.
On Thursday, Trump also expressed confidence that the US will take control of Greenland.
‘Well, I think it’ll happen,’ Trump said, ‘And I’m just thinking I didn’t give it much thought before, but I’m sitting with a man that could be very instrumental. You know, Mark, we need that for international security, not just security – international.’
Trump noted that the US has ‘quite a few soldiers’ already at a couple of bases at the world’s largest island and that ‘maybe you will see more and more soldiers go there’.
Rutte tried to stay neutral on the issue, saying he wanted to stay outside the discussion because he didn’t ‘want to drag NATO into that’. However, he did not oppose Trump’s point on security.
‘But, when it comes to the High North and the Arctic, you’re totally right. The Chinese are now using these routes. We know that the Russians are already arming,’ said Rutte.
‘We know that we have a lack of icebreakers. So the fact that the seven, outside Russia, seven Arctic countries working together on this under US leadership, is very important, to make sure that region, that part of the world, stays safe.’
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