Ottawa-after President-elect Trump While talking about using “economic muscle” to make Canada the 51st nation during his press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded on social media, saying: “There's not much of a chance in hell that Canada is going to do that.” become a part of the United States.”
However, when Trudeau on Monday announced his plan to resign as prime minister once his Liberal Party chooses a successor, the biggest resistance to Trump's push to annex Canada — and his planned 25% tariffs on exports from the country — came from the premier of the most populous province. Populated in Canada, Ontario.
Doug Ford, a former businessman and conservative like Trump who has served as Ontario's 26th premier since 2018, told Fox News Digital in an interview that targeting Canada's president-elect is “crazy” and “ridiculous.”
He said the bilateral focus should be on “consolidating” what the Canadian government describes as “roughing out.” Trillion dollars A two-way trade relationship “to make the United States and Canada the richest and most prosperous jurisdiction in the world.”
Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario, speaks to members of the media as he arrives for a meeting in Ottawa, Canada, on February 7, 2023. (James Park/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
At a news conference in Toronto on Monday following Trudeau's resignation announcement, Ford blasted Trump with a “counter-offer” to his idea of Canada becoming the 51st country.
“What if we bought Alaska and lived in Minnesota?” The premier said at Queen's Park, Ontario's legislature.
Ford joked on Fox News Digital that he heard from Canadians after making the remarks that he should have chosen “somewhere warmer, like Florida or California.”
“California never voted for him anyway,” he added.
At his news conference Monday, Ontario's premier said annexation by Canada “under my watch will never happen.”
Ford is also taking Trump's tariff threat seriously.
President-elect Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speak before a NATO meeting in Watford, Hertfordshire, England, December 4, 2019. (AP Photo/Frank Augustin, File)
Last month, his Progressive Conservative government launched a multi-million-dollar U.S. ad campaign on television and streaming apps touting Ontario as an “ally” to generate “more workers, more trade, more prosperity, more security.”
“You can count on Ontario for the energy to power your growing economy, and for the critical minerals necessary for new technologies,” the 60-second ad reads.
Ford said 25% tariff on CanadaWhich Trump intends to implement on his first day in office on January 20, will harm millions of American and Canadian workers.
“Nine million Americans produce products for Ontario alone every day,” he said. “The problem is that China is shipping goods to Mexico and Mexico is putting up a Made in Mexico label.”
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy head the government's efficiency department. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Ford, who was involved in renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement during the first Trump administration, said Ontario is prepared to take retaliatory measures that “would send a message to the United States” in response to the imposition of U.S. tariffs. Canada now wants to strike separate deals with the United States and Mexico.
“It is unfortunate because revenge is not in the interest of either country,” he added, noting that Ontario is the largest exporter to 17 states and the second largest to 11 other states.
“The last thing I want to do is hurt these people,” Ford said. “I want to create more jobs in the United States, and more jobs in Canada. And we can do that by making sure we tighten and impose tariffs on places like China.”
For example, he said, “someone in Texas who bought a GM pickup truck made in Oshawa, (Ontario) probably paid between $50,000 and $60,000,” and with the tariffs, “they would have paid about $70,000.”
“This doesn't make any sense at all,” Ford said.
Tractor trailers drive across the Ambassador Bridge border crossing from Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit, Michigan, on February 14, 2022. (Jeff Robins/AFP via Getty Images)
He would like a face-to-face meeting with Trump, and said he has reached out to US senators and governors to make that happen. A sit-down with SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk — whom Trump appointed to co-lead a proposed “Government Efficiency Administration” with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy — is also on Ford's wish list.
Ford said Trump “doesn't realize” that Ontario is the third-largest trading partner of the United States, worth about $344 billion in 2023, “evenly split down the middle.”
Ontario's premier said he wants to ship more electricity and vital minerals to the United States, which “needs us just as much as we need them.”
In 2012, the prime minister and his late brother Rob, who was mayor of Toronto at the time, met Trump with his daughter, Ivanka, when they were in the city for the opening of the former Trump International Hotel and Tower, which is now non-Conservative. The Trump Organization, known as the St. Regis Toronto.
Ford, who ran a Toronto-based family business, label and flexible packaging company Deco, before entering municipal politics as a city councilor in 2010, considers Trump a “savvy worker” and “smart businessman.”
The prime minister said the next president “knows about Ontario.”
“Not a single senator, not a single governor, not a single congressman or businessman has ever said Canada is a problem,” said Ford, who opened Deco's Chicago branch in 1999.
Trump didn't have that kind of other thing in mind, he said US allies such as the UK And France, but “wants to target” the United States’ “closest friend,” Canada.
“I'm not sure if it's personal against Trudeau, but Trudeau is on his way out, so hopefully we can have a better conversation,” the Ontario premier said. future.
On Monday, Trump posted on Social truth That “the United States can no longer run the massive trade deficits and subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat.”
Doug Ford campaigns at Cambrian College in Sudbury, northern Ontario, on April 11, 2018. (Steve Russell/Toronto Star)
The 47th US President said: “Justin Trudeau knows this, and he resigned.”
But Trudeau remains prime minister, and Ford and the premiers of the nine provinces and three other territories will meet with him next Wednesday in Ottawa to address the issue of Trump's tariffs.
Although he departs as prime minister sometime in the next two months, when the next Liberal leader is expected to be chosen, Trudeau should not think “he's off the hook” and that Canadian premiers will “hold his feet to the fire” in ensuring that Canada can “hold his feet to the fire,” Ford said. The company is prepared to respond to the Trump administration's impending punitive trade action.
He chairs the Council of Federation – a gathering of Canadian prime ministers, which has made Canada-US relations a top priority and made avoiding US tariffs “priority” According to a statement issued last month.
“Canada and the United States form one of the largest integrated markets in the world, with more than C$3.5 billion (about US$2.4 billion) worth of goods and services crossing the border every day. The United States sells more goods and services to Canada than it sells. To China, Japan and Germany combined.”
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To help allay Trump's concerns about… Border securityThe Ford government on Tuesday launched “Operation Deterrence” to crack down on illegal crossings, drugs and weapons — 90% of which enter Ontario from the United States, the premier told Fox News Digital.
On drugs, he said his government is also cooperating with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to determine where the fentanyl ingredients come from — and whether they come from “China, Mexico or the United States.”
Last month, the Trudeau government announced its own border security plan.
