President Trump welcomed Liberal Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to the Oval Office on Tuesday to discuss trade between the two countries, and he trolled Carney in front of the press immediately after their meeting started.
Trump signaled to the press that the two leaders will discuss trade and the Gaza peace plan while Carney is at the White House this afternoon.
Carney began by offering platitudes and congratulations for President Trump’s success as a “transformative president,” when the President cut him off. “this is, in many respects, the most important,” Carney said as Trump interrupted, “The merger of Canada and the United States.”
The whole room erupted in laughter.
WATCH:
Carney: You kindly hosted me and some of my colleagues a few months ago, and I said at the time, you are a transformative president. And since then, the transformation in the economy, unprecedented commitments of NATO partners to defense spending, peace from India-Pakistan through to Azerbaijan-Armenia, disabling Iran as a force of terror. And now, and I’m running out of time, but this is, in many respects, the most important—
Trump: The merger of Canada and the United States.
Carney: That wasn’t where I was going. No, but, you know on this, on this solemn day of commemoration of the horiffic attacks of October 7, for the first time in decades, hundreds of years, 1000s of years, this prospect of peace that you’ve made possible, Canada stands foursquare behind those efforts, and we’ll do whatever we can to support that.
President Trump has long suggested that he will make Canada the 51st state if they can’t afford to pay the United States’ tariffs.
It would appear he is only joking and attempting to strongman Canada’s leadership. However, during an April interview with Time Magazine, Trump said he’s “really not trolling” about making Canada the 51st state and acquiring Greenland as a US territory.
“We don’t need anything from Canada. And I say the only way this thing really works is for Canada to become a state,” he told Time.
When Carney first visited the White House in May, Trump taunted Carney after he told the President that Canada “won’t be for sale ever.”
“Never say never,” Trump told him.