President-elect Donald Trump asked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday that perhaps Canada should become the “51st state.”
Fox News reported Monday night on new details from the impromptu Mar-a-Lago meeting, which was Trump’s first face-to-face meeting with a world leader since he won reelection on Nov. 5.
Trudeau made a surprise trip to Palm Beach, Florida, on Friday after Trump threatened last Monday to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canada, blaming the United States’ northern neighbor for some of the illegal immigrants who have arrived.
During their meeting, Trudeau told Trump that he cannot impose a 25 per cent tariff on Canada because it would completely destroy the Canadian economy.
Trump responded: So your country can’t survive unless you are defrauding the United States to the tune of $100 billion?
The president-elect then suggested to Trudeau that Canada become the 51st state, prompting nervous laughter from the prime minister and others at the table, Fox sources said.
Trump added that while the title of prime minister is better, Trudeau could still be governor.
Sources said someone at the table suggested Canada would be a truly liberal state, prompting laughter.
During Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Friday night dinner at Mar-a-Lago with President-elect Donald Trump, Trump proposed that Canada would become the 51st state if the Canadian economy could not withstand the 25 percent tariffs. percent threatened by the elected president.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is photographed Saturday at his West Palm Beach hotel after making a surprise trip to Mar-a-Lago to see President-elect Donald Trump. Last Monday, Trump threatened a 25 percent import tax on Canadian products over immigration.
Trump then suggested that Canada could split into two states: a conservative state and a liberal state.
He then told Trudeau that if he didn’t stop people from crossing the northern border, Canada could become one or two states of the United States, the sources said.
While the exchange sparked laughter, sources also told Fox that Trump gave a serious message to Trudeau about immigration enforcement.
Illegal crossings from Canada represent a much smaller number than illegal foot traffic into the United States from Mexico, but Trump threatened both Canada and Mexico with 25 percent tariffs if action was not taken.
In the same Truth Social post, he threatened an additional 10 percent in import taxes to China because the government did not impose the death penalty on drug traffickers as promised.
Part of Trump’s hardline policies are stopping the flow of fentanyl, a deadly drug produced in China, into the United States.
A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation report from last week found that the US Border Patrol had intercepted more than 21,000 migrants crossing into the United States from Canada during the first 10 months of the year.
However, in October alone, border agents detained more than 56,000 migrants crossing the southern border.
ALL SMILES: President-elect Donald Trump’s (right) suggestion that Canada become the 51st state prompted a nervous laugh from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (left) and laughter at the table.
The majority of illegal crossings from Canada – around 18,000 during the first 10 months of the year – are made through the so-called Swanton Sector, which has seen a dramatic increase in illegal crossings in the last two years.
It is the area east of the Great Lakes in New York, Vermont and New Hampshire.
Trump’s next ‘border czar’, Tom Homan, is from this region (and will no doubt pay some attention to it) and is part of Rep. Elise Stefanik’s district.
She has been one of Trump’s top allies on Capitol Hill and will become his ambassador to the United Nations.