Trump won’t stop talking about annexing Canada

On May 4, NBC’s Meet the Press broadcast an interview with President Donald Trump which in part talked about his thoughts on turning Canada into the 51^st state. Trump did not back down on that assertion at all, and instead reiterated his claims. Energy was part of that discussion.

Here is that part of the interview, verbatim. You can watch it from Brian Lilly’s X page here.

 

NBC’s Kristen Welker:

Let’s move on to Canada. You have long talked about making Canada the 51st state. There’s obviously a new prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, who you spoke to …

Donald Trump:

Correct.

Kristen Welker:

… after his victory. He says that you didn’t talk to him in that call about making Canada a 51^st state.

Donald Trump:

No, he called me. He was very nice, and I congratulated him. He had a victory. It’s a very close victory. It’s, you know, there’s no majority or anything. So that’s going to make things a little bit difficult, I think, for him to run. But he nevertheless had a victory. And he’s a very nice man. I think.

Kristen Welker:

Do you plan to talk to him about making Canada a 51^st state?

Donald Trump:

If he wants to come and see me, he’s going to come this week or next week?

Kristen Welker:

So will you talk to him about making Canada a 51st state, annexing Canada?

Donald Trump:

I’ll always talk about that. You know why? We subsidize Canada to the tune of $200 billion a year. We don’t need their cars. In fact, we don’t want their cars. We don’t need their energy. We don’t even want their energy. We have more than they do. We don’t want their lumber. We have great lumber. All I have to do is free it up from the environmental lunatics. We don’t need anything that they have.

We’re giving them I asked, I asked Mr. Trudeau, who I called? Governor Trudeau. I said, you know, not Prime Minister, Governor. I said, Governor Trudeau, could I ask you one question, why are we giving you $200 billion? Why are we subsidizing Canada? If Canada was a state, it wouldn’t cost us. It would be great. It would be such a great … it would be a cherished state.

And if you look at our map, if you look at the geography, I’m a real estate guy at heart, when I look down at that, without that artificial line that was drawn with a ruler many years ago, it was just an artificial line straight across. You don’t even realize what a beautiful country it would be. It would be great, but I don’t think the American public wants me to pay $200 billion a year to subsidize Canada. Again. Remember this, yeah, we don’t need the cost. We don’t need the lumber. We don’t need their energy. We don’t need anything. We do very little business with Canada. They do all of their business practically with us. They need us. We don’t need them.

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Kristen Welker:

You and I talked, and I asked you if you would rule out military force to take Greenland. And you said, No, you don’t rule out anything. Would you rule out military force to take Canada?

Donald Trump:

Well, I think we’re not going to ever get to that point. It could happen. Something could happen with Greenland. I’ll be honest. We need that for national and international security.

Kristen Welker:

But not with Canada?

Donald Trump:

No, I think it’s highly unlikely. I don’t see it with Canada. I just don’t see it. I have to be honest with you …

Kristen Welker:

Okay, but you don’t rule it out for Greenland.

Donald Trump

And by the way, Canada, they spend less money on military than practically any nation in the world. They pay NATO less than any nation. They think we’re subsidy, they think we are going to protect them, and really, we are. But the truth is they don’t carry their full share, and it’s unfair to the United States and our taxpayers.

Kristen Welker:

But, you are not ruling out military force to take Greenland.

Donald Trump

I don’t rule it out. I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything. No, not there.

We need Greenland very badly. Greenland is a very small amount of people, which we’ll take care of and will cherish them and all of that, but we need that for international security.

 

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