Dinner with Trudeau: Canada, the 51st US state? Trump jokes about neighbors

Should Canada soon become part of the USA? The future US President Donald Trump allegedly made this suggestion to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a dinner together. It’s all in good fun, Canadian minister Dominic LeBlanc finally clarified, according to the Toronto Star. He was at the dinner in question at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property. “The president told jokes, the president made fun of us.” That was in no way serious, said LeBlanc.

Fox News had previously reported, citing unnamed sources, that Trump suggested to Trudeau during dinner last week that Canada could become the 51st state of the United States. Trudeau traveled to Trump’s adopted home of Florida to smooth things over after threats from the Republican that he would impose high import tariffs on goods from the US’s northern neighbor. The dinner lasted about three hours.

Trump also seems to have noticed the reports about his Canada joke. On his online mouthpiece Truth Social, he shared an image created with artificial intelligence that shows him in the middle of a mountain range, looking into the distance. A Canadian flag flies next to him. The Republican captioned the picture with “Oh Canada!” – probably in reference to the country’s national anthem with the English title “O Canada”.

During his first term in office, Trump actually seriously vied for the territory of another country. In the summer of 2019, he proposed buying Greenland and annexing it to the USA. The answer from Denmark, to which the world’s largest island belongs politically, was clear: No, thank you.