Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat near the White House Oval Office in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 2025, located in Washington, D.C. Credit – Win McNamee – Gate Image
oU.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio voted on Canadians on the eve of his voting to President Donald Trump about making Canada's “51st State.”
In NBC's appearance See the media On Sunday, April 27, host Kristen Welker asked Rubio if the State Department had “taken any measures to implement” Trump’s plan “as he said, an attachment to Canada.”
“He said this repeatedly, and this was what the former Prime Minister told him [Justin Trudeau] Canada cannot survive without unfair trade with the United States [Trump] When asked, “Well, if you can’t survive as a country without treating our trade unfairly, you should be a country,” Rubio said.
Rubio's comments come after the back and forth remarks between former Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and Trump are about how Canada should deal with the pressure on Trump's tariffs. Canada also imposes a 25% tariff on goods imported from the United States
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Trump has repeatedly said on social media and on journalists that when journalists asked in February about anything in which Trudeau could have an ongoing tariff discussion on Trump, Trump reiterated that as a country, there are no tariffs.
“What I want to see is; Canada is our 51st state,” Trump said. “If people want to play the game correctly, it's 100% sure it will become a state.”
Incumbent Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney also spoke about Trump's ongoing comments about the annexation of Canada. He said Trump raised the matter on a call in March. “It's obvious that I say to anyone who raises this issue on private or public issues, including the president, that it will never happen.
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In an April 22 Time interview, Trump doubled his previous statements and said he was “really not someone who made Canada the 51st state” and believed that the United States did not need “anything from Canada.”
“We are taking care of their military. We are taking care of every aspect of their lives and we don't need them to make cars for us. Actually, we don't want them to make cars for us. We want to make our own cars. We don't need wood. We don't need their energy. We don't need anything from them. We don't need anything from Canada,” “I say the only way this really works is to make Canada a state.”
Read more: Fact checks on what Donald Trump said in the “100 Days” interview in Time
Trudeau announced his plan to resign as a Canadian Liberal leader in January, after telling lawmakers and business leaders to take the threat of annexation seriously, with several media reports saying Trump would like to gain access to key Canadian miners at the Canadian U.S. economic summit in February in Toronto. “Mr. Trump remembers that the easiest way to do it is to absorb our country, and that's the real thing,” he said.
As mentioned earlier, Rubio's new comments landed the day before Canada's April 28 federal election, which could lead to a new leader negotiating tariffs with the U.S. Trump’s comments have had a big impact on the Canadian election so far, with the Liberals taking advantage of Canada’s wave of nationalism due to ongoing trade issues. The country's next leader can decide the fate of Canada's critical relationship with the United States and how to move forward.
“They will have a new leader. We will handle the new leadership in Canada,” Rubio said.. “There are a lot of things to work with in partnership with Canada, but we don’t actually like the way they treat us in trade, and the president has done that in response to the premiership.”
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