ARTICLE AD BOX
America’s top diplomat was questioned on Sunday about Donald Trump’s reasoning for repeatedly calling for Canada to join the United States as the 51st state.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday where moderator Kristen Welker asked him if the administration was actually taking any steps to make Trump’s vision a reality.
The president has made his opinion clear: he wants Canada to join the United States and suggested his administration would also acquire the Dutch-held territory Greenland by any means.
The secretary of state gave his own translation of the president’s remarks on the matter:
“What the president has said, and he has said this repeatedly, is he was told by the previous prime minister that Canada could not survive without unfair trade with the United States, at which point he asked, ‘Well, if you can't survive as a nation without treating us unfairly in trade, then you should become a state.’ That's what he said.”
Rubio told Welker that the administration had taken no action to realize this particular strain of Trump’s bluster, which has alarmed U.S. allies.
There’s a U.S. military base on Greenland, and the president has cited the self-governing nation’s geographical importance as a reasoning for his expansionist goal. Trump has made the comments on numerous occasions, including in conversations with his Canadian counterparts.
Trump himself made his goals of northward expansion apparent during his address to Congress in February.
“We need Greenland for national security and even international security. And we're working with everybody involved to try and get it,” Trump said at the time. “And I think we're going to get it one way or the other. We’re going to get it.”
But he was making similar remarks publicly as early as December 2024.
“No one can answer why we subsidize Canada to the tune of over $100,000,000 a year? Makes no sense!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Many Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State.”
“They would save massively on taxes and military protection. I think it is a great idea,” added Trump.
Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in February as having been caught on a hot mic warning a group of business and labor leaders that the president’s threats were serious.
“Mr. Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing,” Trudeau said, according to the CBC.
“They’re very aware of our resources, of what we have and they very much want to be able to benefit from those,” he continued.
Mark Carney, Canada’s current prime minister, revealed this past week that Trump raised those same ambitions with him in a recent call.
“The president brings this up all the time. He brought it up yesterday. He brought it up before,” Carney said Thursday at a press conference as he campaigns for a full term as prime minister.
Carney added: “To be clear, as I’ve said to anyone who’s raised this issue in private or in public, including the president, it will never happen.”
English (US) ·