A Canadian minister has acknowledged that Donald Trump’s commentary suggesting Canada turn out to be the 51st US assert for the length of a dinner with Canadian High Minister Justin Trudeau, used to be a silly yarn, says ABC News.
The commentary used to be made by Trump in step with Trudeau raising issues that Trump’s threatened tariffs on Canada would harm Canada’s economic system.
Public Security Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who attended the Friday dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, acknowledged Trump’s feedback had been in jest.
“The president used to be telling jokes. The president used to be teasing us. It used to be, for certain, on that verbalize, under no circumstances a excessive commentary,” LeBlanc told journalists in Ottawa.
LeBlanc described it as a 3-hour social night time on the president’s pickle in Florida on a prolonged weekend of American Thanksgiving. “The conversation used to be going to be light-hearted,” he acknowledged.
He called the relatives warm and cordial and acknowledged the truth that “the president is able to silly yarn luxuriate in that for us” signifies correct relatives.
On Tuesday, Trump looked as if it will proceed with the silly yarn, posting on his Truth Social platform an AI-generated image of himself standing on a mountain with a Canadian flag subsequent to him with the caption “Oh Canada!”
Gerald Butts, a extinct prime adviser to Trudeau and a shut perfect friend, acknowledged Trump has carried out this ahead of.
“Trump used the “51st Direct” line with Trudeau loads for the length of his first time-frame,” Butts wrote in a put up on LinkedIn. “When somebody is making an are trying to salvage you to freak out, don’t. #protip”
Earlier last week, the Republican president-elect threatened to impose a 25% tax on all products coming into the US from Canada and Mexico unless they stem the drift of migrants and medication.
Trudeau requested the meeting in a philosophize to retain a long way off from the tariffs by convincing Trump that the northern border is nothing luxuriate in the US southern border with Mexico.
Trudeau held a rare meeting with opposition leaders on Tuesday about U.S-Canada relatives and later acknowledged that opposition Conservative chief Pierre Poilievre should always now not expand the counterfeit narratives that American citizens are saying regarding the border.
“No longer up to 1 p.c of migrants coming into the usa irregularly reach from Canada and 0.2 p.c of the fentanyl coming into the usa comes from Canada,” Trudeau acknowledged in Parliament.
Canadian officers hold acknowledged there are plans to build extra helicopters, drones and law enforcement officers on the border.
On the dinner, Kristen Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the US, acknowledged The United States’s alternate deficit with Canada used to be also raised. Hillman acknowledged the US had a $75 billion alternate deficit with Canada last year but infamous a third of what Canada sells into the US is vitality exports and costs had been high.
“Alternate balances are something that he specializes in so it be valuable to hold interplay in that conversation but to build it into context,” Hillman told The Associated Press. “We’re one-tenth the scale of the usa so a balanced alternate deal would mean per capita we are buying 10 events extra from the US than they are buying from us. If that is his metric we are going to have the option to undoubtedly have interaction on that.”
Hillman acknowledged Canada supplied $170 billion price of vitality products last year to the US
About 60% of US rude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of US electrical energy imports as successfully.
Canada is also the finest international seller of steel, aluminum and uranium to the US and has 34 excessive minerals and metals that the Pentagon is raring for and investing for national security.
About 77% of Canada’s exports scuttle to the US
Trudeau’s authorities efficiently employed a “Crew Canada” skill for the length of Trump’s first time-frame in assert of job when the free alternate deal between Canada, the US and Mexico used to be renegotiated. But Trudeau’s minority authorities is in a principal weaker assert politically now and faces an election within a year.
Poilievre, Canada’s opposition chief, acknowledged the tariffs would destroy American citizens.
“The president-elect used to be elected on a promise to make The United States richer. These tariffs would make The United States poorer,” Poilievre acknowledged after meeting with Trudeau.
Poilievre acknowledged the US shall be wise to assemble extra free alternate with its simplest perfect friend and closest ally.
Canada is the prime export destination for 36 US states. Virtually 3.6 billion Canadian greenbacks ($2.7 billion) price of goods and products and providers hideous the border daily.
Trudeau returned residence after the dinner at Mar-a-Lago club in Florida with out assurances Trump would back a long way off from threatened tariffs on all products from the fundamental American buying and selling companion. Trump called the talks “productive” but signaled no retreat from a pledge that Canada says unfairly lumps it in with Mexico over the drift of substances and migrants into the usa.
The flows of migrants and seizures of substances are vastly diversified. US customs agents seized 43 kilos of fentanyl on the Canadian border for the length of the last fiscal year, when put next with 21,100 kilos on the Mexican border.
Plenty of the fentanyl reaching the US — where it causes about 70,000 overdose deaths every year — is made by Mexican drug cartels the usage of precursor chemicals smuggled from Asia.
On immigration, the US Border Patrol reported 1.fifty three million encounters with irregular migrants on the southwest border with Mexico between October 2023 and September 2024. That compares to 23,721 encounters on the Canadian border for the length of that time.
