By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-01-08 20:56:27 | Updated at 2025-01-09 11:44:10
14 hours ago
US president-elect Donald Trump’s comments that Canada should become the 51st state are no longer a joke and are meant to undermine America’s closest ally, Canada’s finance minister said on Wednesday.
Dominic LeBlanc, the country’s point person for US-Canada relations, said Trump was smiling when he first made the comment during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in late November.
“The joke is over,” said LeBlanc. “It’s a way for him, I think, to sow confusion, to agitate people, to create chaos knowing this will never happen.”
Trump keeps floating the idea that Canada should join the United States as the 51st state, saying Tuesday he would not use military force to invade the country, which is home to more than 40 million people and is a founding Nato partner.
Instead, Trump said he would rely on “economic force” as he erroneously cast the US trade deficit with Canada – a natural resource-rich nation that provides the US with commodities like oil – as a subsidy.
“It’s becoming very counterproductive,” LeBlanc said, referring to Trump’s rhetoric about Canada.
