Carson Jerema: The phoney Donald Trump annexation crisis

Latest musings about Canada becoming the 51st state are just more of the same trolling

Get the latest from Carson Jerema straight to your inbox

Published Jan 08, 2025  •  5 minute read

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

So it turns out Donald Trump doesn’t really want to annex Canada. Seriously. Anyone who watched his news conference Tuesday, and not just the short clip shared on social media, should come away assured, as much as you can with Trump anyway, that his comments about this country becoming the 51st state really are little more than trolling. Certainly, the U.S. president-elect repeatedly musing about absorbing Canada has never been funny, and the words themselves undermine Canadian sovereignty, but nothing Trump said Tuesday about this country was much different than what he’s been saying for weeks.

Article content

Yes, I’m aware that we are supposed to be in crisis mode at Trump’s latest musings, which the Toronto Star called “explosive,” and the Globe and Mail referred to as an “escalation.” Even the National Post’s Wednesday front page played up the president-elect’s comments. A similar response came from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who posted on social media that “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell” that Canada would merge with the U.S., and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who posted that “Canada will never be the 51st state. Period.”

As is so often the case, what Trump actually said is less exciting than the reaction it generates.

When asked by a reporter if he was “considering military force to annex and acquire Canada?” Trump responded, “No. Economic force because Canada and the United States, that would really be something. You get rid of that artificially drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like and it would also be much better for national security.”

That response is the sum total of the so-called “escalation.”

It is, at a brief glance, easy to see why so many felt compelled to react the way they did to the president-elect’s comments, but it was the reporter, not Trump, who used the word “force” first, and getting “rid” of the border could mean any number of arrangements, short of a merger. Beyond that, however, there isn’t much in the way of a new development in the supposed annexation crisis of 2025.

Article content

Article content

Shortly after this exchange with the reporter it becomes clear that Trump’s response was at least as likely, if not more so, to have been an unexpected tangent, than any sort of actual threat to merge the countries by “force.” And if “economic force” means anything to Trump in relation to Canada, it is most likely a reference to his threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian imports.

Because, after the allegedly “explosive” comments, Trump quickly descended into familiar complaints about trade and security: “We basically protect Canada,” “We’re spending hundreds of billions a year to take care of Canada,” “We don’t need the cars. We don’t need their lumber,” “We don’t need anything they have,” “We don’t need their milk, we got a lot of milk.” This doesn’t exactly sound like a man who is interested in taking over Canada — quite the opposite.

When a reporter started to ask Trump, “Does the U.S. have the right to lay claim to a —” the president-elect responded with “No right. Nope. No right. Here’s what we have. We have a right not to help them with their financial difficulties.” And he’s correct, so far as security is concerned anyway. The U.S. has the right to demand that Canada contributes more to the defence of our shared continent.

Article content

So, where exactly is this “escalation”? The specific wording, where Trump explicitly says he has “no right” to lay claim to Canada, is absent from much of the media coverage about the news conference.

Of course, Trump’s equating of a trade relationship with financially subsidizing Canada is entirely flawed. Applying tariffs to all Canadian imports will harm the American economy and increase the cost of fuel, food and other goods and services for his own citizens. It will be more economically harmful to Canada, but trade barriers hurt countries that use them, as well.

The threat of tariffs deserves attention in Canada, but the imagined “escalation” in annexation rhetoric is little more than a digression brought on by a reporter’s question, something Trump is well known for.

Compare Trump’s comments about Canada with what he had to say Tuesday about his desire for the U.S. to acquire Greenland and the Panama Canal.

A reporter asked directly: “Can you assure the world that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion?”

Article content

Trump responded “no” and then added, “You’re talking about Panama and Greenland. No, I can’t assure you on either of those two, but I can say this. We need them for economic security.”

On Canada, he says, “no claim” and “we don’t need anything they have,” but on the Panama Canal and Greenland, Trump refused to rule out military force and said the U.S. needs them for “security.”

It seems if Trump was genuinely threatening to absorb Canada into the U.S., he’d be more direct about it, as he’s hardly shy about threatening an ally. Denmark, which Greenland belongs to, is a NATO country after all.

On Tuesday, Trump also gave his version of how the “joke” about Canada becoming the 51st state started. According to Trump, he complained to Trudeau about military spending and the U.S. running a trade deficit with Canada. “I said, ‘What would happen if we didn’t do it?’ He (Trudeau) said, ‘Canada would dissolve. Canada wouldn’t be able to function.'”

This so-called subsidy is, Trump continued, “OK to have if you’re a state.”

What to make of all this is unclear. Does Trump truly want Canada to become a part of the U.S.? Or is he simply making the point that, in his view, Canada wants the financial and security benefits of being an American state, while remaining an independent country?

What is clear is that Trump truly does have designs on changing the status quo between our two countries in terms of defence spending and trade, and there isn’t anyone currently working in Ottawa making the case for Canada. That’s on Trudeau and the Liberal party.

National Post

Article content