‘Only Works as a State’: Trump Vows Not ‘To Bend’ On Tariffs Until Canada Is Absorbed Into The U.S.
President Donald Trump spoke to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday while meeting with the head of NATO and doubled down on his argument that Canada must join the United States.
“No I’m not,” Trump replied when asked if he would reconsider the latest tariffs.
“Look, we’ve been ripped off for years, and we’re not going to be ripped off anymore. No, I’m not going to bend at all. Or aluminum or steel or cars. We’re not going to bend. We’ve been ripped off as a country for many, many years,” Trump continued, adding:
We’ve been subjected to costs that we shouldn’t be subjected to. In the case of Canada, we’re spending 200 billion a year to subsidize Canada. I love Canada, I love the people of Canada. I love I have many friends in Canada. The great one, Wayne Gretzky, the great. Hey, how good is Wayne Gretzky? He’s a great one.
But we have– I know many people from Canada that are good friends of mine. But, you know, the United States can’t subsidize a country for $200 billion a year. We don’t need their cars. We don’t need their energy. We don’t need their lumber. We don’t need anything that they that they give. We do it because we want to be helpful.
But it comes a point when you just can’t do that. You have to run your own country. And to be honest with you, Canada only works as a state. It doesn’t. We don’t need anything. They have as a state. It would be one of the great states anywhere. This would be the most incredible country visually. If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it between Canada and the U.S. just a straight artificial line. Somebody did it a long time ago, many, many decades ago. And it makes no sense.
It’s so perfect as a great and cherished state. Keeping, ‘Oh, Canada,’ the national anthem, I love it. I think it’s great. Keep it. But it’ll be for the state. One of our greatest states, maybe our greatest state. But why should we subsidize another country for 200 billion, costs us $200 billion a year? And again, we don’t need their lumber. We don’t need their energy.
We have more than they do. We don’t need anything. We don’t need their cars. I’d much rather make the cars here. And there’s not a thing that we need. Now there’ll be a little disruption, but it won’t be very long. But they need us. We really don’t need them. And we have to do this. I’m sorry. We have to do this.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has warned in recent weeks that he truly believes Trump would like to annex his country. In early March, Trudeau said he believes wants “a total collapse of the Canadian economy because that will make it easier to annex us.”
“That is never going to happen. We will never be the 51st state,” he added, saying, “This is a time to hit back hard and to demonstrate that a fight with Canada will have no winners.”
Watch the clip above.
