"Canada should be the 51st state": US President-elect Donald Trump

Florida [US], January 10 (ANI): US President-elect Donald Trump raised the issue of making Canada the 51st state yet again on Friday. During a press conference, he highlighted how tariffs on Canada will eventually be imposed and brought to attention the "massive deficits" the US is having from Canada.

Speaking from Palm Beach, Florida, Trump gave justification for making Canada the 51st state by saying, "I called them Governor Trudeau because they should be the 51st state, really. It would make a great state. And the people of Canada like it. They pay lower taxes. They have virtually no military. They have a very small military. They pay less than 1 percent. They're about the lowest payer in NATO. They're supposed to pay much more. They haven't been paying a lot. They have a lot of problems."He said that Canadian people have found the idea "very interesting". "It was stated pretty strongly a couple weeks ago about Canada and people laughed and now they're all saying, well, it's very interesting".

Justifying the American point of view, Trump said, "From the standpoint of the United States, we're subsidizing Canada. USD 200 and USD 250 billion a year. We have massive deficits. They've taken about 20 per cent of our car business. I'd rather do it here. We could put tariffs on them. We don't have tariffs on them yet, but that will happen."He mentioned that Canada has taken about 20 per cent of America's car business. "I'd rather have it done in Detroit or have it done in South Carolina or any other state that does cars. And we have a lot of them. We don't need Canada for that".

Trump further noted, "We don't need Canada for lumber because we have big forests that we have...we don't need anything. We don't need their fuel. We don't need their energy. We don't need their oil and gas. We don't need anything that they have. And I said to Trudeau, I said, why are we subsidizing you $200 and $250 billion a year? He said, I really don't know. And I said, well, I don't know either. I said, what would happen to Canada if we didn't? He said Canada would be obliterated if that happened. I said, then Canada should be a 51st state. And that's where we are now."Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday that President-elect Donald Trump's comments about turning Canada into the United States' 51st state are just a distraction from the consequences of Trump's tariff threats, CNN reported.

In an interview to CNN, Trudeau said that Canada becoming another US state was "not going to happen." (ANI)