(Headline USA) Canada’s finance minister complained Wednesday that President-elect Donald Trump’s comments on Canada becoming the 51st state were no longer a joke and were meant to undermine America’s closest neighbor.
“It’s becoming very counterproductive,” said Dominic LeBlanc, the country’s point person for U.S–Canada relations.
Trump was smiling when he first made the comment in late November during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, LeBlanc noted.
“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.”
The radical leftist Trudeau, who leaned into adversarial rhetoric criticizing U.S. voters for failing to elect Democrat Kamala Harris, was forced out of office himself this week under pressure as Trump made clear that his administration would not be toyed with.
Trudeau announced Monday he would resign as prime minister but will stay on until a new Liberal leader is chosen.
With an election coming up in October, other members of Canada’s Liberal Party are now panicking that they will suffer a similar fate, while being forced to stake the interests of their country up against their own political careers and ideologies.
That Trump’s goading comes as Canadian Liberals already feel particularly vulnerable about a political reckoning of their own only seems to add insult to injury.
“The timing is awful for sure,” said Liberal lawmaker Judy Sgro of the leadership change. “But we will do what we have to do to ensure that Canada stands strong.”
Asked about Trump’s comments, Sgro said “He should focus on his own issues in his own country, because he’s got lots of them.”
Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller also fired back, dismissing Trump’s comments as “ridiculous.”
“There is no chance of us becoming the 51st state. I think that this is beneath a president of the United States,” Miller ranted. “I said a few weeks ago that this whole thing was like a South Park episode.”
The long-running satirical cartoon series also has been known to lampoon Canadians, even garnering an Oscar nomination for the song “Blame Canada.”
Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said she never takes Trump’s threats lightly.
“At the same time we can’t take the bait,” Joly said. “We have to show we have a strong economy and we are strong and we are not going to be annexed.”
Trump’s pre-inauguration rhetoric has stirred considerable speculation about his true intentions and whether he is truly intent on land acquisitions or simply trying to leverage a stronger hand at the negotiating table.
At a press conference on Tuesday, he roiled Mexico’s president by suggesting that the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the Gulf of America, and he refused to rule out acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal by military force.
Trump ruled out the use military force to invade Canada, a founding NATO partner. Instead, he said he would rely on “economic force,” arguing that the United States largely subsidizes its northern neighbor.
The Republican president-elect has said the U.S doesn’t need anything from Canada, including automobiles, lumber and dairy products.
Canadians counter that they are rich in natural resources and provide the U.S. with commodities like oil.
“I don’t know who is misinforming him,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said. “Right now we ship 4.3 million barrels of crude oil into the U.S. 60 percent of their energy imports are coming from Canada.”
The U.S. imports approximately 60% of its crude oil from Canada, with Alberta alone supplying 4.3 million barrels per day. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. consumes about 20 million barrels a day, while domestically producing about 13.2 million barrels a day. This means about quarter of the oil the U.S. consumes every day is from Canada.
However, Trump has been clear on his intention to once again foster U.S. energy independence through offshore drilling and other energy development projects that the Biden administration has been hostile toward.
Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.
Moreover, Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian worth of goods and services cross the border each day.
LeBlanc has been talking to incoming Trump administration officials about increasing border security in an effort to avoid a sweeping 25% tariff that Trump has threatened to impose on all Canadian products.
LeBlanc, recently appointed to the role after the abrupt resignation of the previous finance minister, also announced he won’t run to replace Trudeau so he can focus on the tariff threat.
Ford said Canada will retaliate if Trump imposes tariffs, saying that a wide range of U.S. products shipped to Canada will be targeted, but he declined to specify which ones.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
