Trump intensifies statehood threats in attack on Canada

OTTAWA, Ontario — The fresh attacks President Donald Trump aimed at Canada on Tuesday extended beyond imposing more tariffs on America’s neighbor and NATO ally, and laid out in the clearest terms yet his vision for annexing Canada and making it part of the United States.

Trump has made repeated comments about Canada becoming America’s 51st state since winning the election in November and last month specifically told the country’s outgoing prime minister, Justin Trudeau, that he did not believe that the border treaty between the two nations was valid, The New York Times reported last week.

On Tuesday, as he announced his intention to double his planned tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, Trump publicly detailed much of his thinking.

“The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State,” Trump wrote. “This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear. Canadians taxes will be very substantially reduced, they will be more secure, militarily and otherwise, than ever before, there would no longer be a Northern Border problem.”

Echoing his private comments to Trudeau in that February call, he said about the border: “The artificial line of separation drawn many years ago will finally disappear.’’

He also said “O Canada,” the national anthem, “will continue to play, but now representing a GREAT and POWERFUL STATE within the greatest Nation that the World has ever seen!”

Much of the world has been seeing Trump’s fixation with annexing Canada as a joke, or merely bluster to push for concessions on trade and other forms of economic integration. It’s been regarded as the least realistic and plausible of Trump’s territorial ambitions, which also include annexing Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, and wanting to reclaim the Panama Canal.

But Canadian political leaders, and Canadians at large, have been taking Trump deadly seriously.

Trump has complained that the existing free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico — which he negotiated and signed — does not sufficiently protect U.S. economic interests and grant American companies free access to Canadian markets.

He has already put in place some tariffs on Canadian goods, and Canada is also affected by certain tariffs Trump has put on global imports. (The metal tariffs he announced Tuesday would be a heavier version of those he plans to enact on imports from elsewhere Wednesday.)

The Canada-specific tariffs — which mirrored those aimed at Mexico and were suspended for 30 days last week — were enacted on the basis of an executive order that claims Canada is responsible for a large number of migrants and fentanyl coming into the United States.

Neither claim is supported by fact.

Some 23,000 people crossed the northern border illegally into the United States in 2024, just 1% of the number of people who crossed in from the southern border with Mexico. And only 1% of the fentanyl found in the U.S. seems to have originated in Canada — with some evidence suggesting the volume is even lower.

Trudeau, who is in his last days in office, reached an agreement with Trump for a reprieve on tariffs by promising to redouble border efforts, leading to a plunge in the number of migrant crossings. He also appointed a fentanyl czar and committed fresh funds in U.S.-Canada cooperation to fight organized crime gangs that are responsible for its trade.

The crisis in the relationship between the two nations has upended Canadian politics. Trudeau and his Liberal Party, which had grown deeply unpopular, experienced a reversal of fortunes. On Sunday, the party picked Mark Carney, a former central banker and investor, to replace Trudeau before a federal election in the near future.

And the Conservative Party has joined the Liberals in treating Trump’s threats to Canada’s economy and sovereignty as a profound crisis, highlighting the galvanizing effect of Trump’s actions and rhetoric.

On a social level, Canadians have rallied around the flag. A movement to boycott U.S. goods is gathering steam with “Buy Canadian” signs popping up in stores and many homes putting on displays of newly energized patriotism.

Canadian political leaders have sought to stress just how different the United States and Canada are, and have been defiant in their resistance to Trump’s attacks.

“This is a nation-defining moment,” Trudeau said Sunday evening at his party’s convention in Ottawa, Ontario. “Democracy is not a given. Freedom, it’s not a given. Canada is not a given. None of those happen by accident. None of them will continue without effort.”