Trump (Jokingly?) Insists Canada Should Be 51st State

Justin Trudeau leaves his hotel for the airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, on November 30, 2024. Photo: Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

I hope you’re getting used to waking up to the stupidest news you’ve ever heard because Donald Trump’s latest pre-inauguration antics are really something. The day after Thanksgiving, Trump reportedly suggested to Justin Trudeau that Canada become the 51st state.

That sounds like a joke, I know — and it probably is? But maybe not!

Trump floated this idea during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago, which the Canadian prime minister suggested after Trump tried to conduct serious trade negotiations via Truth Social. When Trudeau warned that Trump’s threat to impose a 25 percent tariff on all goods from Canada would have dire economic consequences, the president-elect suggested the U.S. could just annex the second largest country in the world, per Fox News. The remark was met with nervous laughter, but it’s unclear if Trump’s audience was laughing along with him or was simply stunned:

Trudeau told Trump he cannot levy the tariff because it would kill the Canadian economy completely. Trump replied — asking, so your country can’t survive unless it’s ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100 billion? 

Trump then suggested to Trudeau that Canada become the 51st state, which caused the prime minister and others to laugh nervously, sources told Fox News.

The laughter continued as Trump needled Trudeau about becoming governor of Canada:

But he continued, telling Trudeau that prime minister is a better title, though he could still be governor of the 51st state.

Sources told Fox News someone at the table chimed in and advised Trump that Canada would be a very liberal state, which received even more laughter. Trump suggested that Canada could possibly become two states: a conservative and a liberal one.

He told Trudeau that if he cannot handle his list of demands without ripping the U.S. off in trade, maybe Canada should really become a state or two and Trudeau could become a governor.

While sources say the exchange got many laughs, Trump delivered the message that he expected change by January 20.

But again, Trump’s tone isn’t clear from the report. (If this were any other leader, it would be obvious the jibes weren’t serious, but not with him.)

And whatever his original intent was, now Trump is now using the idea of annexing Canada to publicly taunt Trudeau. On December 10 he posted this on Truth Social:

And on December 18 he wrote this (at 3:23 a.m.!):

The root issue here is Trump’s issuing a serious economic threat against our neighbor in the stupidest manner possible. In a November 25 Truth Social post, he said Canada and Mexico will be hit with 25 percent tariffs on day one of his second term unless they meet his subjective demands. “This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” he wrote.

This is not the first time Trump has made a ludicrous offer to annex a whole country: Back in 2019, he tried to buy Greenland. As the New York Times noted at the time, that offer also seemed like a dumb joke until Trump got mad at Denmark for refusing to consider his impossible proposal:

It started as a headline seemingly straight out of The Onion. Then it unleashed a torrent of jokes on late-night television and social media. And finally it exploded into a serious diplomatic rupture between the United States and one of its longtime allies.

In the latest only-in-Trumpland episode skating precariously along the line between farce and tragedy, the president of the United States on Wednesday attacked the prime minister of Denmark because she will not sell him Greenland — and found the very notion “absurd.”

Regardless of whether Trump was purely joking, blustering to make himself sound threatening, or seriously considering a takeover of Canada, this will likely play out just as the Greenland story did. Back then, no territory changed hands, and, as the Times put it, Trump made the U.S. the target of a “global laughing fit.”

This post was updated to include Trump’s Truth Social posts.