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Trump Thought Canada Would Be His 51st State. Then Came Carney

How the former central banker got in the way of the president’s grand plans

It is difficult to make sense of Donald Trump’s tariffs on international trade, since they are nonsensical, especially as he appears unshakably convinced that his tariffs are paid by the companies or countries exporting goods to the United States, rather than the American companies importing them. In the bold thinking of Trumpism, tariffs are both a revenue stream for America and punitive to other countries. All this squabbling over tariffs and counter-tariffs would disappear overnight if Canada just dropped its border and signed over its territory to the United States. Trump has had it in his head for quite some time that this could be his crowning achievement, his mark on history—a real estate deal of epic proportions.

Trump broached the idea in a meeting at Mar-a-Lago with then prime minister Justin Trudeau and a small Canadian contingent on November 29, 2024, nine days after he had been re-elected president. He confirmed he would be imposing 25 percent tariffs on Canada but said there would be no tariffs if Canada were part of the US. No border, no levies. Dominic LeBlanc, then minister of public safety who had been present at the meeting, laughed nervously when he insisted to media that the president was teasing. Trump made clear he was not.

Four days later, he posted to his social accounts an AI-generated image of himself standing in a business suit at the summit of a mountain, looking out over a range of snow-capped peaks receding into the distance, as an enormous Canadian flag streamed beside him in the wind. It did not take long for LeBlanc’s nervous laugh to harden into a nation’s angry resolve.

The resolve got a rallying cry and a hashtag on March 1, 2025, three weeks before the federal election was called, when comedian Mike Myers appeared on Saturday Night Live, playing Elon Musk. At the closing credits, when the cast assembled onstage, Myers revealed a T-shirt reading “Canada Is Not for Sale,” flexed his elbow at the camera, pointed to it, and mouthed, “Elbows up!” He made the same #elbowsup! gesture the following week. The day before the election was called, the Liberals released a campaign video of Prime Minister Mark Carney and Myers in hockey jerseys talking about Canada while leaning on the boards at a rink.

This was in contrast to another national treasure, Wayne Gretzky, maybe the greatest hockey player in the history of the National Hockey League, who, almost overnight, fell out of national favour for reasons he could not understand but were obvious to everyone else. He was a friend of Trump’s, who offered him up as the governor of a future fifty-first state of Canada, posting to the world just before Christmas 2024 that he’d had dinner with Gretzky at Mar-a-Lago.

Gretzky did nothing to speak out against the very idea that Canada should be absorbed into the US. By February, Trump felt compelled to come to Gretzky’s defence. “Wayne is my friend, and he wants to make me happy, and is therefore somewhat ‘low key’ about Canada remaining a separate Country, rather than becoming a cherished and beautiful 51st State, paying much Lower Taxes, a Free and Powerful Military, no tariffs, and having a Booming Economy,” Trump posted to Truth Social.

Curiously, Trump barely mentioned Canada once the election was underway. He railed against Canada throughout March, complaining about the weak border that he falsely claimed allowed fentanyl and dangerous aliens to flood into the US and about Ontario’s threat to impose a surcharge on electricity sold to the US. On March 27, four days into the election, Trump threatened even more trade-inhibiting tariffs........

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