Canada’s outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that President-elect Donald Trump's comments about Canada becoming the "51st US state" were a distraction from the crucial issue, which was the harm that steep tariffs would cause to American consumers.
Trump had earlier threatened to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian imports.
“The 51st state, that’s not going to happen,” Trudeau said in an interview with MSNBC. “But people are talking about that, as opposed to talking about what impact 25 per cent tariffs (has) on steel and aluminium coming into the United States.”
He further said, “No American wants to pay 25 per cent 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.”
Trump previously said that if Canada merges with the United States, the taxes would go down and there would be no tariffs.
“I know that as a successful negotiator, he likes to keep people off balance,” Trudeau said when asked about Trump's threat to use economic force for the merger of the two countries.
“He got elected to try and make life easier for all Americans, to support American workers,” Trudeau said of Trump. “These (tariffs) are things that are going to hurt them.”
Also read: ‘Give your head a shake!’; Canada’s former PM Chretien offers blunt advice to Trump
Trump shares map of US which shows Canada as part of America
Trump on January 8 had shared a distorted map of the United States that showed Canada as part of America.
Sharing the post on his official social media platform, Truth Social, he captioned it as "Oh Canada!”
His post came hours after he threatened to use "economic force" to merge Canada with the US.
While delivering remarks at Mar-a-Lago on January 7, Trump said, “Economic force, because Canada and the United States, that would really be something. 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. You don't forget, we basically protect Canada."
"We don't need anything they have. We don't need their dairy products, we have more than they have. We don't need anything, so why are we losing $200 billion a year and more to protect Canada? And I said that to, as I called him, Governor Trudeau. I said, listen, what would happen if we didn't subsidize you if we didn't? Because we give them a lot of money, we help them," he added.
(With inputs from agencies)