Mark Carney won the Canadian Prime Minister election
Mark Carney won the Canadian election to maintain his power as Prime Minister.
WASHINGTON – In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” President Donald Trump said he wants to make Canada the 51st state and does not imagine the United States using military force to seize its neighbours.
In an interview that aired on May 4, Trump said he is still interested in annexing Canada but hasn’t labelled the same category as Greenland.
Asked if he would remove military force to take Canada, Trump told host Kristen Welker, “Meet the press”:
“But I think that’s very unlikely,” Trump added. “I haven’t seen it with Canada. I’m not watching it, I have to be honest with you,” he said with a laugh.
Trade tensions with Canada
Canada-US relations have been strained since Trump threatened the country with fierce tariffs. During a late November dinner in Florida with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, he lifted Ante by suggesting that Canada would renounce its sovereignty and become part of the United States. Trump led Trudeau to call him the “governor” of “the great province of Canada” on social media.
Trudeau said he would leave his office in early January after being pressured to resign from the party amid the decline in votes. Trump continued his tariffs anyway, but he said it was about fentanyl distribution and drug trafficking, struck Canada and Mexico at a 25% rate for imports.
The tariffs later stimulated a boycott of Canadian American goods and helped Trudeau’s alternative to liberal Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney win the April 28 election. In a fiery speech, Carney declared that the United States would never own the country, and told Canadians they had to look for itself in Canada.
“As I have warned for months, America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country,” Carney said. “But these are not neglecting threats. President Trump is trying to destroy us so that America can own us. That will never happen.”
Trump in annexation plan: “What a beautiful country”
Carney says he will meet up with Trump at the White House on May 6th. Trump told NBC that Carney is a “good guy” and confirmed he’ll be visiting soon.
“He called me, he was very kind and I congratulated him,” Trump said of his call with Carney after the election. “It’s a very close victory, and I think it’s going to make things a little more difficult because there’s no majority or anything.
Trump showed during his meeting with Carney that he plans to nurture his proposed annexation of Canada.
“If you look at our map, and when you look at geography, I’m a real estate man in my mind. When I look down on it without the artificial lines painted with the ruler years ago, it’s just an artificial line, straightened, what a beautiful country. That’s amazing,” Trump said.
Emphasizing his argument that Canada volunteers to become a US state, Trump told NBC that the US doesn’t want and doesn’t need what the country produces.
“We don’t need anything. We have very little business with Canada,” Trump said. “They do everything in their business with us. They need us. We don’t need them.”
Canada is one of the top two trading partners in the US. According to the US Trade Representative, the US exported $349.4 billion in goods to Canada in 2024. US imports from Canada totaled $412.7 billion in the same year.
Trump argued that the gap between Canada and the US is much larger when defence spending is explained. Canada is one of the NATO countries that has lower GDP compared to military spending than guidelines that the alliance has mutually agreed upon.
