Washington DC:
After teasing the “dawn of America’s golden age”, the US President-elect has shared a new map of the United States, which incorporated Canada as its territory. This comes hours after Mr Trump threatened to use “economic force” to absorb Canada into the United States.
Taking to his social media platform Truth Social, the incoming US president shared a map showing Canada as a part of the United States, and wrote, “Oh Canada!”
This came hours after Donald Trump renewed his offer of making Canada the 51st state of America and threatened to use “economic force” to absorb Canada into the United States.
Speaking at a press conference at Florida Mar-a Lago home hours after his election victory was certified, Trump said, “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.”
“Canada and the United States, that would really be something,” Mr Trump added.
He also raised concerns about Canada’s military spending and said, “They have a very small military. They rely on our military. It’s all fine, but, you know, they got to pay for that. It’s very unfair.”
Asked if he would use military force to bring Canada to heel, the incoming president said “No, economic force.”
Promising to “turn the economy around very quickly,” Mr Trump said, “We’re approaching the dawn of America’s golden age.”
Later, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hit back at Trump’s threat, saying there is no possibility of merging countries. “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States. Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner,” Mr Trudeau wrote on X (formally Twitter).
Trump, 78, who never had a good relationship with Trudeau even during his first term from 2017-2021, has been floating the idea of making Canada the 51st state of the United States ever since he met Trudeau after his November 5 electoral victory in Mar-a-Lago. Thereafter, he has been mentioning this on his social media posts several times.
“Many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State. The United States can no longer suffer the massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat. Justin Trudeau knew this, and resigned,” he earlier said on Truth Social.
