OTTAWA-After President-elect Trump mused about utilizing “financial power” to accumulate Canada because the 51st state throughout his Mar-a-Lago information convention on Tuesday, outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded on social media that “there isn’t a snowball’s probability in hell that Canada would change into a part of the United States.”
However, as Trudeau introduced on Monday his plan to resign as prime minister as soon as the Liberal Party that he leads chooses his successor, the most important pushback to Trump’s pitch to annex Canada – and his deliberate 25% tariffs on exports from the nation – has come from the premier of Canada’s most populous province, Ontario.
Doug Ford, a former businessman and conservative like Trump who has served as Ontario’s twenty sixth premier since 2018, informed Fox News Digital in an interview that the president-elect’s concentrating on Canada is each “loopy” and “ridiculous.”
He stated the bilateral focus ought to be on “strengthening” what the Canadian authorities calls a virtually trillion-dollar two-way commerce relationship to “make the U.S. and Canada the richest and most affluent jurisdiction on the planet.”
At a Toronto information convention on Monday following Trudeau’s resignation announcement, Ford chided Trump with a “counteroffer” to his Canada-as-a-51st state thought.
“How about if we purchase Alaska and throw in Minnesota?” the premier stated at Queen’s Park, Ontario’s legislature.
Ford jokingly informed Fox News Digital that he heard from Canadians after making these remarks that he ought to have chosen “someplace hotter, like Florida or California.”
“California by no means votes for him anyway,” he added.
At his Monday information convention, Ontario’s premier stated that “beneath my watch,” annexing Canada “won’t ever, ever occur.”
Ford can be taking Trump’s tariff menace severely.
Last month, his Progressive Conservative authorities launched a multimillion-dollar U.S. advert marketing campaign on tv and streaming apps touting Ontario as an “ally” to generate “extra staff, extra commerce, extra prosperity, extra safety.”
“You can depend on Ontario for power to energy your rising economic system, and for the essential minerals essential to new applied sciences,” says the 60-second advert.
Ford stated the 25% tariff against Canada, which Trump plans to implement on his first day in workplace on Jan. 20, would damage thousands and thousands of American and Canadian staff.
“Nine million Americans produce merchandise for Ontario alone each single day,” he stated. “The downside is China delivery items into Mexico and Mexico slapping a made-in-Mexico sticker.”
Ontario is able to take retaliatory measures “that may actually ship a message to the U.S.” in response to the imposition of U.S. tariffs, stated Ford, who was concerned within the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement throughout the first Trump administration, however would now like Canada to have separate offers with the U.S. and Mexico.
“It’s unlucky as a result of retaliation just isn’t good for both nation,” he provided, noting that Ontario is the highest exporter to 17 states and the second largest to 11 others.
“The final thing I wish to do is damage these folks,” stated Ford. “I wish to create extra jobs within the U.S., extra jobs in Canada. And we are able to do this by ensuring that we toughen up and put tariffs on locations like China.”
By method of instance, he stated that “somebody in Texas who bought a GM pickup truck made in Oshawa, [Ontario] might need paid between $50,000 and $60,000,” and with a tariff, “could be paying 70 some-odd thousand.”
“It simply doesn’t make sense in any way,” Ford stated.
He want to have a face-to-face assembly with Trump and stated he has reached out to U.S. senators and governors to make that occur. A sit-down with SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk – whom Trump appointed to co-lead, with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, the proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” – can be on Ford’s wish-list.
Ford stated Trump “doesn’t understand” that Ontario is the U.S.’s third-largest buying and selling accomplice, amounting to about US$344 billion in 2023, “cut up equally down the middle.”
Ontario’s premier stated he desires to ship extra electrical energy and important minerals to the U.S., which “wants us like we want them.”
TRUMP REACTS TO TRUDEAU RESIGNATION: ‘MANY PEOPLE IN CANADA LOVE BEING THE 51ST STATE’
In 2012, the premier and his late brother, Rob, who was mayor of Toronto on the time, met Trump, alongside together with his daughter, Ivanka, once they had been within the metropolis to open the previous Trump International Hotel and Tower, now unaffiliated with The Trump Organization and referred to as The St. Regis Toronto.
Ford, who ran a Toronto-based household enterprise, Deco Labels & Flexible Packaging, earlier than getting into municipal politics as a metropolis councilor in 2010, considers Trump “a shrewd operator” and “a wise businessperson.”
The incoming president “is aware of about Ontario,” the premier stated.
“Not one senator, not one governor, not one congressperson or businessperson, has stated that Canada is an issue,” stated Ford, who opened a Deco department in Chicago in 1999.
He stated Trump has not set his sights on such different U.S. allies as the United Kingdom and France, however “desires to focus on” the U.S.’s “closest buddy,” Canada.
“I’m not too certain if it’s private in opposition to Trudeau, however Trudeau is on his method out, so hopefully we’ll have a greater dialog,” stated Ontario’s premier, who added that he would contemplate taking a run at federal politics sooner or later.
On Monday, Trump posted on Truth Social that “the United States can not endure the huge Trade Deficits and Subsidies that Canada wants to remain afloat.”
“Justin Trudeau is aware of this, and resigned,” stated the subsequent, and forty seventh, U.S. president.
But Trudeau continues to be the prime minister, and Ford and the premiers of the opposite 9 provinces and three territories will meet with him subsequent Wednesday in Ottawa to handle the Trump tariff subject.
Despite his departure as prime minister someday over the subsequent two months when the subsequent Liberal chief is predicted to be chosen, Trudeau shouldn’t suppose “he’s off the hook” and Canadian premiers “will maintain his ft to the hearth” in guaranteeing that Canada is prepared to answer the Trump administration’s imminent and punitive commerce measure, stated Ford.
He chairs the Council of the Federation – a gathering of Canada’s premiers, which has stored Canada-U.S. relations prime of thoughts and has made avoiding U.S. tariffs “a priority,” in line with a press release issued final month.
“Canada and the U.S. kind one of many largest built-in markets on the planet, with greater than C$3.5 billion [about US$2.4 billion] value of products and companies crossing the border every day. The U.S. sells extra items and companies to Canada than it sells to China, Japan and Germany mixed.”
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To assist assuage Trump’s issues over border security, Ford’s authorities launched on Tuesday “Operation Deterrence,” to crack down on unlawful crossings, and medicines and weapons – 90% of that are getting into Ontario from the U.S., the premier informed Fox News Digital.
On medication, he stated his authorities can be collaborating with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to determine the supply of fentanyl elements – and whether or not they originated in “China or Mexico or the U.S.”
Last month, the Trudeau authorities introduced its personal border-security plan.