Unpacking Trump's latest broadside about Canada as '51st state'

US president Donald Trump on Wednesday again spoke favorably of Canada becoming the 51st state, saying it was “a good idea. “

“No one can answer why we subsidize Canada to the tune of over $100,000,000 a year?” That doesn't make sense! Many Canadians want Canada to be the 51st State,” he said on Truth Social. “They would save a lot on taxes and military protection.”

Trump has made a series of statements and social media posts since his November 5 election victory mocking Canada and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, referring to him as the “governor” of the 51st state.

Earlier this week, Trump accepted Chrystia Freeland's resignation from the cabinet, calling her “toxic.”

Freeland was heavily involved in trade negotiations with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer during Trump's first term. The pair, along with a top Mexican official, signed the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA, in 2019, updating the former North American Free Trade Agreement.

Trump has threatened when he becomes president next month to impose huge tariffs on all Canadian goods unless he stops the flow of migrants and illegal drugs into the US

Rehashing an old trade deficit claim?

While some suggest that Trump is simply engaging in trolling, others suggest that the threat is an effective political tactic.

“He's going to be dominant and scared, he's been very successful at using these strategies, and ordinary politicians usually don't know how to deal with it,” Jennifer Mercieca, Texas A&M communications professor and world-renowned author. Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trumpto CBC News recently.

Mercieca said Trump's sense of humor is the result of creating an “inside and outside group,” putting people in different categories.

It is not particularly clear where the $100,000,000 that Trump is raising came from, although it appears to be repeating a figure that is seven years old.

The Washington Post reported at the time that it appeared to come from Lighthizer misinterpreting Statistics Canada data that revealed a $98-billion merchandise trade deficit. The figure did not take into account trade in services.

Trump has long been frustrated by US trade deficits with other countries, although some economists argue that the trade deficit alone does not offer a full account of the health of an economy.

“A larger trade deficit can be the result of a stronger economy, as consumers spend and import more while higher interest rates make foreign investors more eager to put some money in the United States,” said the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in its 2019 report.

Canada's defense spending under scrutiny

Previous US presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama urged members of the NATO alliance to support domestic defense spending, and in 2014, NATO members agreed to pledge two percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) your defense costs over the next ten years. At the time, Canada was spending only 0.9 percent of its GDP on defense.

Trump in his first presidential campaign and subsequent term in office has criticized members of the alliance and falsely described them as “criminal” in spending.

Canada's military spending is now estimated to be between 1.3 and 1.4 percent of its GDP.

This summer, Trudeau told a meeting of parliamentarians from NATO countries that Canada is on track to meet its commitment to spend two percent of GDP on defense by 2032, a promise that has been coolly fulfilled in the US

Canada and other countries should meet the NATO-imposed target of spending two percent of GDP “as quickly as humanly possible,” said US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, while congressman suggested Republican Jim Risch of Idaho said last month that Trump would release his “very big guffaw” at Canada's current timeline.

Canada's federal Defense Minister, Bill Blair, said a few weeks ago that he was “ready to go faster,” and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte earlier this month. they contacted the members of the federation to increase their defense spending to “well over two percent.” Alliance members must be on a “wartime basis” with their defense spending, he said.

Some analysts have said that the horizontal metric can provide an incomplete picture of a country's military status and its research and development and other capabilities.

“Spending at two percent says very little about a nation's military capabilities; his willingness, practice, and
stability levels; and the quality of the force it can deploy,” think tank Carnegie Europe said in a 2015 report. “It is also mum about a country's willingness to deploy forces and take risks one when these forces are deployed, it does not assess whether a country is spending its limited resources wisely.”

Blair told the Canadian Institute of Global Affairs conference in Ottawa last month that he wants help from the US because much of what the Canadian Armed Forces has to offer comes from American corporations and defense contractors. .

Canadians are thrilled to be 51st

A recent Leger poll suggests that 13 percent of Canadians would like the country to be the next US state. The demographic breakdown shows that support is higher among men, at 19 percent, compared to just seven percent of women.

Conservative party supporters came in at 21 per cent, while one in 10 Liberal voters said they were in favor of the idea. The Canadian People's Party showed the highest level of support among the federal parties, at 25 percent, while the NDP had the lowest, at six percent.

Among the total population, 82 percent were against the idea, with the highest percentage coming from the Atlantic regions, women and Canadians over 55. Leger surveyed 1,520 people between December 6 and December 9. error because online polls are not considered random samples.

It's not a question that Canadians have been asked about often, although it has happened in the past.

A 1990 Gallup poll around the time the Meech Lake accord negotiations began revealed that only 13 percent of those surveyed would support the idea that their province would join the United States, with 79 percent against.

In 1964, Maclean ran a special issue covering US-Canada relations. In a poll commissioned by the magazine and several other Canadian media, including the CBC program Research17 percent were in favor of a union between Canada and the US, and 12 percent were more strongly in favor of union.

Canadians got a taste of what it's like to be part of the United States on CBC's latest episode A cross-country study.

You can listen to what the audience had to say here: