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Trump Serious About Canada, 51st State 02/10 06:05
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump said he is serious about wanting
Canada to become the 51st state in an interview that aired Sunday during the
Super Bowl preshow.
"Yeah it is," Trump told Fox News Channel's Bret Baier when asked whether
his talk 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. is not subsidizing Canada. The U.S. buys products from the natural
resource-rich nation, including commodities like oil. While the trade gap in
goods has ballooned in recent years to $72 billion in 2023, the deficit largely
reflects America's imports of Canadian energy.
Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada would be better off if it agreed
to become the 51st U.S. state -- a prospect that is deeply unpopular among
Canadians.
Trudeau said Friday during a closed-door session with business and labor
leaders that Trump's talk of making 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
said, according to 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" without U.S. trade, and warned that the founding NATO
member can no longer depend on the U.S. for military protection.
"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 said. "Something has to happen. It's not
sustainable. And I'm changing it."
Trump last week agreed to a 30-day pause on his plan to slap Mexico and
Canada with a 25% tariff on all imports except for Canadian oil, natural gas
and electricity, which would be taxed at 10%, after the countries took steps to
appease his concerns about border security and drug trafficking.
Aboard Air Force One, Trump said that he would on Monday announce a 25%
tariff on all steel and aluminum imports into the U.S., including from Canada
and Mexico, and unveil a plan for reciprocal tariffs later in the week.
"Very simply it's if they charge us, we charge them," he said.
Trump's participation in the Super Bowl interview marked a return to
tradition. Presidents have typically granted a sit-down to the network
broadcasting the game, the most-watched television event of the year. But both
Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, were inconsistent in their participation.
Biden declined to participate last year -- turning down a massive audience
in an election year -- and also skipped an appearance in 2023, when efforts by
his team to have Biden speak with a Fox Corp. streaming service instead of the
main network failed. During his first term, Trump participated three out of
four years.
Trump was the first sitting president to attend the Super Bowl in person --
something he told Baier he was surprised to learn.
"I thought it would be a good thing for the country to have the president at
the game," he said.
During 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."
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