State of Eh? Canadian official counters Trumps 51st state proposal and offers to buy two American states
No, Canada.Ontario Premier Doug Ford countered President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to make Canada the 51st state of the Union — by making an offer to purchase two American states.At a press conference Monday, the senior Canadian official got testy when a reporter asked if he thought Trump was serious with his talk of the United States taking control of its economically dependent northern neighbor, Canada. “To the president, I’ll make him a counteroffer.How about if we buy Alaska? And we’ll throw in Minnesota and Minneapolis at the same time?” Ford said.
“You know, it’s not realistic.”“I know he likes making these comments and he likes joking around — I take that seriously,” the premier said in relation to Trump’s recent public push to unify the two North American nations.“He may be joking, but under my watch, that will never, ever happen.”Ford has previously tried to go tit-for-tat with the Don.Last month Ford — the brother of the scandal-marred late Toronto mayor Rob Ford — threatened to cut power to over one million Americans and ban American-made beer over Trump’s 25% tariff proposal.“It would cut off the lights to a million-and-a-half Americans,” Ford said.“If they come at us we have to stand up for Canadians, we have to stand up for Ontarians.”Canada is the nation’s No.
1 exporter of energy to the US, which spends around $3 billion annually on Canadian electricity to power residents of states like Michigan and New York.Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had a similar message for the former and future commander in chief.“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States,” Trudeau, 53, wrote on X.“Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner.”Trump has rejected the notion that the United States needs Canada as a trading partner in any capacity — and has suggested that it b...