Trudeau says Trump’s threat to annex Canada ‘a real thing’

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a business gathering on Friday that US President Donald Trump’s threat to annex Canada “is a real thing,” two Canadian business leaders who were at the meeting confirmed to CNN.

Trudeau’s comments, first reported by the Toronto Star, were picked up on an open microphone when Trudeau believed the media had been escorted out.

“Mr. Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing. In my conversations with him on…,” Trudeau said, according to audio from the Canada-US Economic Summit in Toronto shared by CBC News, before the microphone cut out.

Trudeau made the comments after delivering an opening address at the summit, and after journalists had left the room, CBC reported.

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In an interview with CNN before Trump’s inauguration, Trudeau said that Trump’s comments about turning Canada into the United States’ 51st state are just a distraction from the consequences of Trump’s tariff threats.

He added that Canada becoming another US state was “not going to happen.”

“Canadians are incredibly proud of being Canadian. One of the ways we define ourselves most easily is, well, we’re not American,” he told CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper” in the interview in early January.

“President Trump, who is a very skillful negotiator, is getting people to be somewhat distracted by that, by that conversation, to take away from the conversation around 25% tariffs on oil and gas and electricity and steel and aluminum and lumber and concrete,” Trudeau said in the CNN interview.

Trump followed through with his threats to impose tariffs on Canada last week, announcing a new 25% duty on most Canadian goods imported into the US. However, after Trudeau made commitments to bolster security at Canada’s border, Trump announced Monday a pause on the proposed tariffs for at least a month.

After a call with Trump, Trudeau said Canada would be implementing its previously announced $1.3 billion border plan, as well as committing to appointing a “fentanyl czar” and listing cartels as terrorists.