WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump stated he’s critical about wanting Canada to change into the 51st state in an interview that aired Sunday through the Tremendous Bowl preshow.
“Yeah it is,” Trump advised Fox Information Channel’s Bret Baier when requested whether or not his discuss of annexing Canada is “a real thing” — as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently warned.
“I think Canada would be much better off being the 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let that happen,” he said. “Why are we paying $200 billion a year, essentially a subsidy to Canada?”
The U.S. just isn’t subsidizing Canada. The U.S. buys merchandise from the pure resource-rich nation, together with commodities like oil. Whereas the commerce hole in items has ballooned lately to $72 billion in 2023, the deficit largely displays America’s imports of Canadian power.
Trump has repeatedly steered that Canada can be higher off if it agreed to change into the 51st U.S. state — a prospect that’s deeply unpopular amongst Canadians.
Trudeau stated Friday throughout a closed-door session with enterprise and labor leaders that Trump’s discuss of constructing Canada the 51st U.S. state was “a real thing” and tied to desire for access to the country’s natural resources.
“Mr. Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing. In my conversations with him on …,” Trudeau stated, in line with CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster. “They’re very aware of our resources of what we have, and they very much want to be able to benefit from those.”
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday as he traveled to the Super Bowl game in New Orleans, Trump continued to threaten a country that has long been one of the U.S.’s closest allies. He claimed that Canada is “not viable as a country” with out U.S. commerce, and warned that the founding NATO member can not rely on the U.S. for navy safety.
“You know, they don’t pay very much for military. And the reason they don’t pay much is they assume that we’re going to protect them,” he said. “That’s not an assumption they can make because — why are we protecting another country?”
In the Fox interview, which was pre-taped this weekend in Florida, Trump also said that he has not seen enough action from Canada and Mexico to stave off the tariffs he has threatened to impose on the country’s two largest trading partners once a 30-day extension is up.
“No, it’s not good enough,” he stated. “Something has to happen. It’s not sustainable. And I’m changing it.”
Trump final week agreed to a 30-day pause on his plan to slap Mexico and Canada with a 25% tariff on all imports apart from Canadian oil, pure fuel and electrical energy, which might be taxed at 10%, after the nations took steps to appease his considerations about border safety and drug trafficking.
Aboard Air Power One, Trump stated that he would on Monday announce a 25% tariff on all metal and aluminum imports into the U.S., together with from Canada and Mexico, and unveil a plan for reciprocal tariffs later within the week.
“Very simply it’s if they charge us, we charge them,” he stated.
Trump’s participation within the Tremendous Bowl interview marked a return to custom. Presidents have sometimes granted a sit-down to the community broadcasting the sport, the most-watched tv occasion of the yr. However each Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, had been inconsistent of their participation.
Biden declined to take part final yr — turning down a large viewers in an election yr — and in addition skipped an look in 2023, when efforts by his crew to have Biden communicate with a Fox Corp. streaming service as an alternative of the primary community failed. Throughout his first time period, Trump participated three out of 4 years.
Trump was the primary sitting president to attend the Tremendous Bowl in individual — one thing he advised Baier he was shocked to study.
“I thought it would be a good thing for the country to have the president at the game,” he stated.
Throughout his flight to New Orleans, Trump signed a proclamation declaring Feb. 9 “the first ever Gulf of America Day” as Air Force One flew over the body of water that he renamed by proclamation from the Gulf of Mexico.
Trump in the interview, also defended the work of billionaire Elon Musk, whose so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has been drawing deep concern from Democrats as he moves to shut down whole government agencies and fire large swaths of the federal workforce in the name of rooting out waste and inefficiency.
Musk, Trump said, has “been terrific,” and will target the Department of Education and the military next.
“We’re going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse,” Trump predicted. “I campaigned on this.”
He was also asked about his dancing, which has become a popular meme on social media.
“I don’t know what it is,” he said. “I try and walk off sometimes without dancing and I can’t. I have to dance.”
___ Related Press author Darlene Superville aboard Air Power One contributed to this report.
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