Trump Reportedly Told Trudeau He Wanted to ‘Revise’ U.S.-Canada Border – ‘Tear Up’ Treaty on Sharing Great Lakes
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President Donald Trump reportedly told Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on a call last month that he wished to “revise” the border separating their two countries.
According to The New York Times, Trudeau walked away from the conversation with the belief Trump’s ultimate goal was to “annex” his country – which Trump has repeatedly called the “51st state” in recent months.
Writing for the Times, Matina Stevis-Gridneff reported Friday that Trump and Trudeau spoke twice on Feb. 3 about US tariffs on Canadian goods.
Per Stevis-Gridneff, Trudeau believed at the time that Trump’s referring to him as Canada’s “governor” was a joke. By early this week, the prime minister believed Trump was trying to bring his country to heel.
Citing four sources close to talks between Trump and Trudeau, Stevis-Gridneff reported:
On those calls, President Trump laid out a long list of grievances he had with the trade relationship between the two countries, including Canada’s protected dairy sector, the difficulty American banks face in doing business in Canada and Canadian consumption taxes that Mr. Trump deems unfair because they make American goods more expensive.
He also brought up something much more fundamental.
He told Mr. Trudeau that he did not believe that the treaty that demarcates the border between the two countries was valid and that he wants to revise the boundary. He offered no further explanation.
The current Canadian-US border was decided by a treaty in 1908.
Per the Times, Trump said he wanted to discuss “the sharing of lakes and rivers between the two nations, which is regulated by a number of treaties, a topic he’s expressed interest about in the past. Canadian officials took Mr. Trump’s comments seriously, not least because he had already publicly said he wanted to bring Canada to its knees.”
Trump also reportedly expressed a desire to “tear up the Great Lakes agreements and conventions between the two nations that lay out how they share and manage Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario.”
That sentiment was reportedly echoed privately to Canadian officials by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Trudeau said on Tuesday of this week that he believed Trump’s endgame was coercing Canada into accepting statehood. The prime minister said, “What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us.”
