U.S. President Donald Trump thinks absorbing Canada is the easiest way to benefit from its resources, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was heard saying in a hot mic moment on Friday.
Trudeau, who was in Toronto to host a Canada-U.S. business summit on Friday, was heard saying Trump’s plans to annex Canada were a “real thing.”
“I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have but that may even be why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state. They’re very aware of our resources, of what we have and they very much want to be able to benefit from those,” Trudeau can be heard saying.
“But Mr. Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country. And it is a real thing,” Trudeau said behind closed doors to business community leaders and politicians from across Canada during the summit on Canada-U.S. relations in Toronto.
The comments come after Motorcycle accident toronto today reported that Steve Bannon, a former top Trump aide, said Canadians should be taking Trump’s comments about annexing Canada very seriously.
That’s because, Bannon said, the Arctic is going to be the “Great Game of the 21st century” and a military weakness that he calls Canada’s “soft underbelly.”
Melting polar ice caps are making the far north more accessible to countries like Russia and China, meaning Canada has to do more to protect its vulnerable northern frontier — and, in turn, protect the U.S. And if Canada refuses, Bannon said,
By annexing Greenland, retaking the Panama Canal and securing Canada’s northern border, Trump is apparently trying to establish a north-south economic and military corridor, according to Bannon. It’s all about “hemispheric control,” he told Motorcycle accident toronto today.
Both Trudeau and Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc have in the past brushed aside questions about Trump’s quips on Canada becoming the 51st state.
LeBlanc, who was also at a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Trudeau and Trump last year, was asked about Trump’s comments at the time.
“The conversation was going to be lighthearted. The president was telling jokes. The president was teasing us. It was, of course, on that issue in no way a serious comment,” he said in December.
Appearing on MSNBC last month, Trudeau said Canadians need to take Trump’s expansionist rhetoric seriously, and that there is a certain amount of “flattery” in Trump seeing how great the country is.
“And I know that, as a successful negotiator, (Trump) likes to keep people a little off-balance. The 51st state, that’s not going to happen. It’s just a non-starter. Canadians are incredibly proud of being Canadian,” said Trudeau, who taped the appearance while in the United States to attend the funeral for former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
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Conservatives said Trudeau’s latest comments underscored the need to recall Parliament from prorogation to respond to Trump’s threats.
“Anything that Mr. Trudeau and Mr. LeBlanc have said obviously can’t be believed,” Conservative MP Michael Barrett told reporters on Parliament Hill when asked about the hot mic comment Friday. “They’ve been demonstrated to be lying to Canadians.
“Now we find ourselves in a situation where they’re saying that this sudden crisis has emerged with respect to these comments that for months — for months — they’ve said weren’t to be taken seriously. The Liberals have an opportunity to address this very important question that you asked, and it should be addressed right here in the House of Commons.”
Trudeau says U.S. presents ‘long-term’ challenge
Speaking earlier at the opening of the summit, Trudeau said Canada needs to look beyond the United States so it can get through a “challenging” four years under Trump.
Trudeau said Canadians have a lot of “strategic reflection” to do over the coming days, “to see not just how we get through this particular challenge over the next 30 days or few months,” but “grow stronger over the next four years and into what may be a more challenging, long-term political situation with the United States.”
Trump’s plan to impose sweeping tariffs this week has been put on pause until March 4.
That looming threat and the volatility of his administration has many business and labour leaders urging Canada to look for alternative trading partners and ways to strengthen internal trade in order to mitigate the blow that tariffs would have on Canada’s economy and workers.
Trudeau called for an end to interprovincial trade barriers that make it hard for Canadian provinces to trade with each other.
“It’s about time we had genuine free trade within Canada,” Trudeau told the summit, which is being attended by business and labour leaders, Indigenous leaders and public policy experts.
“(There are) a lot of barriers that just don’t make sense. But it’s going to require all of us, not just governments, but business leaders as well, to step up and push hard and make sure that in this moment, we actually move forward on free trade within Canada,” he said.
The prime minister also spoke of finding international trade partnerships outside of the United States.
“We have a free trade deal with Europe that has seen, opportunities grow significantly over the past years. But can we do even more? Can we look at, diversifying our supply chains so that we do have those opportunities internationally as well?”
The federal government is hosting a summit in Toronto Friday aimed at bolstering the economy in the face of Canada’s rapidly changing relationship with its largest trading partner.
That looming threat and the volatility of his administration has many business and labour leaders urging Canada to look for alternative trading partners and ways to strengthen internal trade.
The summit is being hosted by the government’s newly created advisory council on Canada-U.S. relations, and includes business and labour leaders, Indigenous leaders and public policy experts.
Flavio Volpe, a member of the advisory council and president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, says he hopes the meeting is just the start of something bigger.
He says Canada is facing “the most serious industrial threat we’ve ever faced” and the moment calls for a collective effort similar to what happened in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s important that this isn’t a photo op, that this isn’t a talking-to session, that this isn’t the only time we get together,” he said.
Representatives from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and Canadian Manufacturing and Exporters will attend, as will the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations.
Drew Dilkins, the mayor of Windsor, Ont., said this kind of meeting can help ensure different levels of government and the private sector are “rowing in the same direction.”
“Aligning on the facts is really important because what’s missing in this whole conversation, at least from my perspective on the U.S. side, is fact,” he said.
He and other border community mayors established the Border Mayors Alliance in response to the tariff threat to advocate on behalf of the cities that have the most to lose. But he said that kind of grassroots action only works if everyone understands the approach.
Dilkins took part in a meeting of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Big City Mayors Caucus in Ottawa on Thursday, where tariffs and trade with the U.S. were the only topics.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in opening remarks at the event, reiterated the need for a “Team Canada” approach.
He said the country is “doing more than just bracing ourselves, we’re convening provincial and territorial leaders to do the vital work of breaking down barriers that hamper interprovincial trade.”
That is precisely what Dennis Darby, president and CEO of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, said he wants to see in the long term.
Darby said he intends to tell the government that if tariffs are imposed, businesses and workers will need help in the form of direct government relief, tax relief or wage subsidies.
Beyond that, he said, there are “structural problems within the Canadian economy that need to be addressed.”
They include the need to make it easier to move goods between provinces — trade that is undermined by a complicated regulatory environment — and to ensure Canada takes better advantage of its trade deals with other countries.
“We’re always going to trade with the Americans, no question,” said Volpe. “Can we rely on them?”
–with files from Global’s Sean Boynton and the Canadian Press