https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-quest-conquer-canada-confusing-everyone-rcna195657March 14, 2025
By Allan Smith and Peter Nicholas
Eight years ago, President Donald Trump spoke about the U.S.-Canada relationship in glowing terms.
Fast-forward to Thursday, weeks after Trump initiated a full-scale trade war with Canada, and it’s clear the president doesn’t believe the U.S. should share a border — or much else — with its Canadian neighbors.
Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump first mentioned his love for Canadians, including his “many friends” like hockey legend Wayne Gretzky. Then he riffed about how Canada shouldn’t exist as a sovereign country before getting to what has increasingly become a fixation: wholesale annexation of Canada as a U.S. state.
Trump has been unapologetic in his quest to conquer the Canadians — an effort he said in January would be conducted by “economic force.” The result has been a disintegration of the relationship between the U.S. and one of its closest allies, and a stock market plunge over fears of ever-increasing escalation of a trade war. Both Canadian officials and Republicans initially thought the president was merely joking, ribbing Trudeau — a longtime foil — after they met at Mar-a-Lago in November. It was after that visit that Trump first publicly floated the notion of absorbing Canada. Few think he’s joking now, and the Canadians have stopped laughing.
While Canadians said Trump did privately joke to Trudeau about Canada becoming a state during the president’s first term, several officials who worked in Trump’s White House said the broad assault on Canadian sovereignty was not born out of any conversations at the time. In fact, these former officials said they have no recollection of Trump ever raising the issue.
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