WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump stated he’s critical about wanting Canada to turn into the 51st state in an interview that aired Sunday throughout the Tremendous Bowl preshow.
“Yeah it’s,” Trump informed Fox Information Channel’s Bret Baier when requested whether or not his discuss of annexing Canada is “an actual factor” — as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently suggested.
“I believe Canada can be a lot better off being the 51st state as a result of we lose $200 billion a yr with Canada. And I’m not going to let that occur,” he stated. ”Why are we paying $200 billion a yr, primarily a subsidy to Canada?”
The U.S. isn’t subsidizing Canada. The U.S. buys merchandise from the pure resource-rich nation, together with commodities like oil. Whereas the commerce hole in items has ballooned in recent times to $72 billion in 2023, the deficit largely displays America’s imports of Canadian vitality.
Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada can be higher off if it agreed to turn into the 51st U.S. state — a prospect that’s deeply unpopular amongst Canadians.
Trudeau stated Friday during a closed-door session with business and labor leaders that Trump’s discuss of creating Canada the 51st U.S. state is “an actual factor” and is linked to his want for entry to the nation’s pure assets.
“Mr. Trump has it in thoughts that the best approach to do it’s absorbing our nation and it’s a actual factor. In my conversations with him on,” Trudeau stated, in accordance with CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster. “They’re very conscious of our assets of what now we have and so they very a lot need to have the ability to profit from these.”
Within the interview, which was pre-taped this weekend in Florida, Trump additionally stated that he has not seen sufficient motion from Canada and Mexico to stave off the tariffs he has threatened to impose on the nation’s two largest trading partners.
“No, it’s not ok,” he stated. “One thing has to occur. It’s not sustainable. And I’m altering it.”
Trump final week agreed to a 30-day pause on his plan to slap Mexico and Canada with a 25% tariff on all imports apart from Canadian oil, pure fuel and electrical energy, which might be taxed at 10%, after the nations took steps to appease his considerations about border safety and drug trafficking.
Whereas touring Sunday on Air Pressure One to the championship sport in New Orleans, Trump stated that he would on Monday announce a 25% tariffs on all metal and aluminum imports into the U.S., together with from Canada and Mexico and a plan for reciprocal tariffs later within the week.
“Very merely it’s in the event that they cost us, we cost them,” he stated.
Trump’s participation within the interview marked a return to custom. Presidents have usually granted a sit-down to the community broadcasting the Tremendous Bowl sport, the most-watched tv occasion of the yr. However each Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, had been inconsistent of their participation.
Biden declined to take part final yr and in 2023, when efforts by his group to have Biden converse with a Fox Corp. streaming service as an alternative of the primary community failed. Throughout his first time period, Trump participated in three out of 4 years.
Trump on Sunday may also turn into the first sitting president to attend the Super Bowl in person — one thing he informed Baier he was shocked to study.
“I believed it could be a superb factor for the nation to have the president on the sport,” he stated.
Throughout his flight to New Orleans, Trump signed a proclamation declaring Feb. 9 “the primary ever Gulf of America Day” as Air Pressure One flew over the physique of water that he renamed by proclamation from the Gulf of Mexico.
Trump within the interview, additionally defended the work of billionaire Elon Musk, whose so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has been drawing deep concern from Democrats as he strikes to close down complete authorities businesses and hearth giant swaths of the federal workforce within the title of rooting out waste and inefficiency.
Musk, Trump stated, has “been terrific,” and can goal the Division of Schooling and the army subsequent.
“We’re going to search out billions, tons of of billions of {dollars} of fraud and abuse,” Trump predicted. “I campaigned on this.”
He was additionally requested about his dancing, which has turn into a preferred meme on social media.
“I don’t know what it’s. I try to stroll off generally with out dancing and I can’t. I’ve to bounce as a result of it’s simply that – one thing particular about it,” Trump responded.
___ Related Press author Darlene Superville contributed reporting from Air Pressure One.
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