HAMILTON, Canada
Canada’s outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday that US President-elect Donald Trump’s talk about annexing his country was a distraction from the looming threat of tariffs on key Canadian exports.
Trudeau, who travelled to Washington, D.C. to attend the state funeral of former US President Jimmy Carter, spoke to CNN and strongly dismissed Trump’s remarks on making Canada the “51st state.”
“That’s not going to happen. Canadians are incredibly proud of being Canadian. One of the ways we define ourselves most easily is, well, we’re not American. There is such a depth of pride that that’s not actually an issue,” he said.
He suggested that Trump’s comments are a strategic move to divert attention from more pressing economic issues.
“What I think is happening in this is President Trump, who’s a very skillful negotiator, is getting people to be somewhat distracted by that, by that conversation,” Trudeau said.
Noting the potential impact of the proposed US tariffs, he claimed that Trump is aiming “to take away from the conversation around 25% tariffs on oil and gas and electricity and steel and aluminum and lumber and concrete, and everything the American consumers buy from Canada is suddenly going to get a lot more expensive if he moves forward on these tariffs.”
“That’s something that I think we need to be focusing on a little bit more,” he added.
Asked about his advice for his potential successor, Trudeau stressed the importance of collaboration.
“Yes, the American president has a capacity to hurt the Canadian economy. There’s no question about that. But anything an American president does to hurt the Canadian economy will also hurt American consumers, American workers and American growth,” Trudeau said.
He further called for the two nations to collaborate in addressing global challenges.
“We do better when we work together to take on the world, whether it’s China or Russia or anywhere else. When we work together, we can’t be stopped.”
Since his election victory in November, Trump has referred to Canada as the “51st state.”
The US president-elect previously threatened to slap a 25% tariff on Canadian imports unless Canada takes steps to significantly reduce the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants crossing into the US. He similarly threatened Mexico with the tariffs.
