Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday (January 13, as per Indian time) assertively states that Canada will not be part of the US and become 51st state of the country. He was speaking with news network MSNBC. Trudeau said that US President-elect Donald Trump was saying such things to distract American public from the issue of tariffs he plans to impose on Canada.
“The 51st state, that’s not going to happen,” said Trudeau during the interview.
“But people are talking about that, as opposed to talking about what impact 25% tariffs (has) on steel and aluminium coming into the United States.”
Trudeau said that the strategy of imposing tariffs on American products will ultimately hurt the US consumers.
“No American wants to pay 25% more for electricity or oil and gas coming in from Canada. That’s something I think people need to pay a little more attention to.”
When asked about Trump’s threat of using USA’s economic might to merge the two countries, Trudeau said,”“I know that as a successful negotiator, he likes to keep people off balance.”
“He got elected to try and make life easier for all Americans, to support American workers…“These (tariffs) are things that are going to hurt them,” he added.
For quite a few days, Trump has been repeatedly saying that Canada should be part of the US as its 51st state. In several posts on Truth Social, the social media platform he himself owns, Trump has been claiming that if US and Canada merged, it will be a stronger country. Trump said that Canadians’ taxes will go ‘way down’ and Canada will be more secure as the US forces would be protecting it.
