Updated: Trump's Threats to Annex Canada are Deadly Serious

Donald Trump is planting the seeds to justify the annexation of Canada. It's time to stop ignoring the threat.

Mar 09, 2025

Errors and omissions: Keen-eyed readers from Canada let us know that we got two things wrong about Canadian elections. First, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he would resign on 7 January after elections were held for the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. The requirement that parliamentary elections need to be held by 20 October is codified in Canadian law but is not part of the Constitution. Additionally, we found an error where Canada's population was posted as 34 million people. Our editorial team used the 2020 population figure. As of 2025, the correct number is 39.5 million to 40.1 million, depending on the source. The story has been updated to address all three errors. We thank our readers for defending the truth because the truth matters.

U.S. President Donald Trump has not backed down from his calls to make Canada “the 51st state” and is setting conditions in the information space to gain broad American support.

Since November 2024, Trump and his surrogates have been building their case to annex Canada using the same tactics of autocrat Vladimir Putin to maintain the partial occupation of Moldova, the 2008 invasion of Georgia, and the 2014 invasion of Ukraine.

Trump’s capricious nature and chaotic rule make it easy to dismiss the talking points as amusing statements meant to distract attention from other issues. A chief reason the threats should be taken seriously is due to the absurdity. The U.S. attacking its closest ally and trade partner, which shares the longest undefended land border in the world?

Fox News first reported that Trump suggested Canada would become the 51st state during a 29 November 2024 visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf resort by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.1 During the meeting, Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on Canada due to the nation’s failure to stop the flow of undocumented immigrants and fentanyl into the U.S. He told Trudeau that the tariffs would “kill” Canada’s economy, which would force Ottawa into considering becoming the 51st state.

Since the meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Washington implemented 25% tariffs on 4 March and paused them two days later.2 Trump has not only continued his rhetoric about Canada becoming the 51st state, he has openly questioned the legitimacy of the U.S.-Canada border and the Canadian government. Other members of the administration are now framing Canada as an existential threat to the U.S.

Trump Questioning NATO Loyalty Goes Deeper

On Thursday, speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump questioned the loyalty of the NATO Alliance. “Do you think they're going to come and protect us,” he said. “Hmm. They're supposed to. I'm not so sure.”3

While Trump framed his doubt around a theoretical attack on the U.S. by China, questioning the loyalty of allies is part of setting a broader narrative. In order to justify annexation or military action, the U.S. population needs to be convinced that Canada presents an existential threat. This is similar rhetoric adopted by Russia in 2023. Moscow dropped the talking point of “allied forces” after the Severodonetsk Offensive of 2022 and moved to a message of standing alone while fighting all of NATO.

Questioning NATO loyalty, which Trump did during his first term, is meant to disrupt the alliance and create the narrative that the U.S. has no allies in the world.

Important Context

After the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the U.S. became the only country to invoke Article 5 of the NATO Alliance - an attack on one is an attack on all. In the 20 years that followed, 25 of 28 NATO nations deployed troops or provided support in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003 to 2021. Additionally, Ukraine and Moldova deployed troops to Iraq, with 12 Ukrainians killed in combat and another 33 wounded from 2003 to 2005.

U.S. allies within NATO and among other alliances have mostly supported the U.S. since the end of World War II.

Framing Canada as an Existential Threat

Other members of the administration have gone further, portraying Canada as an existential threat to the U.S. Senior trade adviser to President Trump, Peter Navarro, claimed that Canada had been “taken over” by Mexican drug cartels.4 “What I wanna say to every world leader who gets up in arms when all we’re asking for is fairness and to have them stop killing our people is please,” Navarro said, speaking with Fox News host Bret Baier. “Canada could do a lot more. Canada has been taken over, Bret, by Mexican cartels. They bring up these pill presses and printers and the medicines that they fake; you can’t tell the difference.”5

Last Saturday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called on Canada to join Mexico in applying tariffs against China.6 “I think it would be a nice gesture if the Canadians did it also,” said Bessent. “[I]n a way, we could have fortress North America from the flood of Chinese imports that’s coming out of the most unbalanced economy in the history of modern times.”

Ottawa never responded, with members of the Trump administration accusing Canada of supporting China.

In December, Vice President JD Vance accused Canada of supporting “anti-Christian bigotry.”7

“Canada has seen a number of church burnings in recent years thanks to anti-Christian bigotry. All over the world, Christians are the most persecuted religious group. Jamil is speaking the truth. Shame on journalists who refuse to see what's obvious.”

The Trump administration, and in particular Vance, has embraced Christian nationalism as a rallying cry to their base.

Fact Check and Important Context

According to a CBC study, 33 church fires occurred in Canada from May 2021 to December 2023. Of those, 24 were confirmed as arson, roughly .75 churches per month. In 2023, 75 churches in the U.S. were damaged or destroyed by arson or attempted arson, according to the Family Research Council.8 That is approximately 6.25 churches per month.

Adjusting for population, Canada’s rate is practically equal to the United States. The increase was caused by the revelation that the Catholic Church killed hundreds of Indigenous children and the discovery of 215 unmarked graves in Kamloops, British Columbia. Eleven of 24 arsons from May 2021 to December 2023 were in the 12 weeks after the revelation in Kamloops. Indigenous, religious, and government leaders condemned the fire bombings.

Challenging the U.S.-Canada Border

The New York Times reported that in two phone calls with Trudeau in February, Trump said he wanted to “revise the boundary” between the U.S. and Canada and questioned the validity of the 1908 Treaty Between the United States of America and the United Kingdom Concerning the Boundary Between the United States and the Dominion of Canada From the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Trump even called the international border “an artificially drawn line.”9 10

The 13-page treaty covered a number of topics, including salvage rights and prisoner exchanges. The guts of the agreement called for a joint survey and marking of the boundary on rivers and lakes along the already agreed border. The only areas that were still in question were Passamaquoddy Bay and parts of the St. Croix River.

Questioning the legitimacy of the border is a serious escalation. More troubling, the 1908 treaty only addressed minor issues between the U.S. and Canada.

Important Context

Two of the largest wars in the last 35 years started over the questioning of international borders and claims they are artificial. One of Dictator Saddam Hussein’s justifications for the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait was the claim that the country was always part of Iraq and unjustly torn away. Russia has used the same rhetoric to justify its 2014 invasion of Ukraine and continued war of aggression. The Middle East has experienced almost 80 years of war between Israel and its neighbors over similar claims.

Since the Mar-a-Lago meeting in November, Trudeau now sees Washington’s rhetoric as an existential threat. Prior to meeting with King Charles on Monday, the Canadian Prime Minister said nothing is more important to his citizens than "standing up for our sovereignty and our independence.”11 Days earlier, Trudeau warned that Trump’s plans to annex Canada “is a real thing.”

Trudeau went further on Tuesday, accusing Trump of planning “a total collapse of the Canadian economy because that will make it easier to annex us,” adding, “That is never going to happen. We will never be the 51st state.”12

Economic Isolation as a Weapon

As previously noted, Trump threatened to isolate Canada economically to force Ottawa to accept annexation. Going beyond the short-lived 25% tariffs implemented on Tuesday (10% on energy products), the U.S. president accused Canada of “cheating” economically to damage the U.S. economy.13

Prime Minister Trudeau confirmed the reports were accurate, adding that he joked that maybe Trump would trade Vermont or California.14 15 “[Trump] immediately decided it was not that funny anymore,” said Trudeau, “and we moved on to a different conversation.”

After ending tariffs on Thursday, Trump suggested that new tariffs could be implemented shortly. Writing on his personal social media network Truth Social, he said, "Canada is cheating the United States Farmers on USMCA. In 2024, Canada retained Tariffs on various U.S. Goods, particularly in protected sectors like Dairy that are operated under a supply management system. Some examples of Canadian Tariffs on U.S. Dairy outside of the limited quota include: Milk: Up to 243%…Butter: Up to 298%…Cheese: Up to 245%."

"These sky high Tariffs are part of Canada's unfair, long-standing policy to shield domestic producers from foreign competition, especially in Agriculture," he continued. "Our Great U.S. Dairy Farmers deserve fair treatment from Canada. Enjoy it while you can!"

Fact Check

Trump’s Truth Social is accurate, and Canada has kept high tariffs on U.S. dairy products to protect its farmers, but important details were left out.

The U.S., Canada, and Mexico signed the Trump-led U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in September 2018, which included increasing access to U.S. dairy products.

According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, a key achievement of USMCA was “increasing dairy market access,” with Canada agreeing to “provide new tariff rate quotas exclusively for the United States.”16

That included gradually increasing the exemption to 50,000 metric tonnes of milk by 2024 and then increasing the amount by 1% per year for the next 13 years. A similar agreement was reached for 10,500 metric tonnes of cream, 7,500 metric tonnes of milk powder, 4,500 metric tonnes of butter and cream powder, 1,380 metric tonnes of concentrated and condensed milk, 4,135 metric tonnes of yogurt and buttermilk and other dairy products.

Trump criticized his own trade agreement on 25 February, telling reporters, “I look at some of these agreements, I’d read them at night, and I’d say, ‘Who would ever sign a thing like this?”17

Fact Check

On 30 January 2020, during “Remarks by President Trump at a USMCA Celebration with American Workers” in Warren, Michigan, he declared, “The USMCA is the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law. It’s the best agreement we’ve ever made, and we have others coming.”18

Trump even specifically called out the benefit to U.S. dairy farmers. “The USMCA will substantially boost exports for American dairy farmers — also very, very big.”

More importantly, during the November Mar-a-Lago meeting, Trump explicitly said he would use tariffs as an economic weapon to force Canada into annexation.

He has gone on to spread disinformation about trade figures between the U.S. and Canada.

On Truth Social, Trump wrote, “We pay hundreds of Billions of Dollars to SUBSIDIZE [Emphasis Trump - Ed.] Canada. Why? There is no reason. We don't need anything they have…Without this massive subsidy, Canada ceases to exist as a viable Country. Therefore, Canada should become our Cherished 51st State.”19 20

The reference to subsidies is built on another false claim that the U.S. has a massive trade deficit with Canada.

Fact Check

According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative and the U.S. Census, the total trade deficit between the U.S. and Canada for goods and services is $63.3 billion, a year-over-year reduction of 1.4%.21 22

Since the USMCA was signed in September 2018, the trade deficit between Canada and the U.S. has gotten worse, with the exception of 2020, when the COVID-19 Pandemic occurred. The deficit was $18.8 billion in 2018, $25.8 billion in 2019, and $47.7 billion in 2021. In January 2025, it exploded to $11.9 billion just for the month, a 42% year-over-year increase.

The first public justification for tariffs on Canada (and Mexico) was another false claim of massive amounts of fentanyl coming into the U.S. from Canada and unchecked undocumented immigration. Trump repeated this claim on the campaign trail, and others in the administration, including Vice President JD Vance, have repeated the claim.23 During a mini-Tweet storm on 2 February, Vance wrote, “Spare me the sob story about how Canada is our “best friend.” I love Canada and have many Canadian friends. But is the government meeting their NATO target for military spending? Are they stopping the flow of drugs into our country? I’m sick of being taken advantage of.”24

During the State of the Union Address, Trump said, “Much has been said over the last three months about Mexico and Canada. But we have very large deficits with both of them. But even more importantly, they have allowed fentanyl to come into our country at levels never seen before, killing hundreds of thousands of our citizens.”25 26

According to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service (CBP), only 43 pounds of fentanyl was seized on the Canadian border coming into the U.S., and 11 pounds were seized attempting to go into Canada. The 32 pounds represent just 0.2% of all fentanyl seized by CBP in 2024.27

Fact Check

As for illegal immigration, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, there were 162,840 Title 8 and Title 42 encounters on the northern border, a similar number to 2025. Border encounters sharply increased in late 2022 as global COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions wound down.28

In a further indication that Trump is attempting to collapse the Canadian economy, he warned against retaliatory tariffs. “Please explain to Governor Trudeau of Canada that when he puts on a Retaliatory Tariff on the U.S., our Reciprocal Tariff will immediately increase by a like amount!”29

Canada did issue retaliatory tariffs which raised major concerns among U.S. business leaders. Instead of following through with his threat, Trump paused the tariffs until 2 April.

Important Context

Russia used similar economic tactics against Ukraine, significantly weakening its economy in the lead-up to the 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea.30 Russia used natural gas and oil as a weapon, imposing steeper prices, restricting and halting deliveries, and placing embargos on trade—Ukraine, which was somewhat isolated from the E.U. by not being a member state, was highly dependent on trade with Russia.

When Moscow’s economic blackmail failed to put a more Moscow-friendly administration into power, autocrat Vladimir Putin turned to hybrid and kinetic warfare.

Some historians blame the metal and fuel embargo placed by the U.S. on Japan in July 1940 as significantly contributing to Japan’s decision to declare war.31

“Governor” Trudeau and the 51st State aren’t Jokes

Calling Canada the 51st state as policy and referring to its elected leader as a “governor” should not be dismissed as jokes. The normalization of the rhetoric is meant to delegitimize Ottawa and Canadian leadership. This is a common tactic among countries setting conditions to support a coup, annex territory, or declare war.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump publicly referred to Trudeau as “governor” for the first time on 9 December. “It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada. I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all!”32

Lost in the chaos of the White House information assault, on 8 February before the Super Bowl, President Trump told Fox News host Baier he was serious about turning Canada into the 51st state.33

On 3 March at the Haskell Free Libary and Opera House, which is half in Vermont and half in the Quebec Province, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem repeatedly jumped over the line that demarks the border. On the U.S. side, she declared, “USA number one,” while on the Canadian side, she said, “The 51st state.”34

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has also referred to Canada as the 51st state.35

Just as Trump falsely called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator,” Trump accused Trudeau of stalling elections in Canada to remain in power. On 5 March, Trump questioned the Canadian electoral process. “He [Trudeau] was unable to tell me when the Canadian Election is taking place, which made me curious, like, what’s going on here? I then realized he is trying to use this issue to stay in power.”36

The next day, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “Believe it or not, despite the terrible job he’s done for Canada, I think that Justin Trudeau is using the Tariff problem, which he has largely caused, in order to run again for Prime Minister. So much fun to watch!”37

Fact Check and Important Context

Canadian PM Trudeau announced his resignation on 7 January and never made any claims about seeking reelection.38 Unlike the U.S., Canada uses a parliamentary system where a majority of representatives elect the prime minister.

When Trudeau announced he would resign, he used a procedure called prorogation, which suspends parliament but does not dissolve it. The measure was approved by the Governor-general, who is the official representative of the King of Canada, who is King Charles. The crown approved the request, and voting will be on 9 March.

Under Canadian law, elections must be held by 20 October but can be held earlier if parliament decides. Trudeau correctly stated to Trump that he does not know the date for new elections because the new prime minister could call for early elections.

Why and How Would the U.S. do This

The very real threats of annexing Canada are being made for the same reason other nations with imperialistic intent occupy their neighbors. Russia wants to conquer Ukraine for the same reason. “Lebensraum” and the pillage of Canada’s wealth and resources. The U.S. wants bauxite (aluminum), coltan (cobalt), oil, natural gas, diamonds, gold, timber, uranium, and other resources.

That and the need to absorb the 40 million Canadian citizens to solve the looming demographic crisis in the United States, which lacks enough workers.

Yes, this seems conspiratorial and raises questions about the NATO Alliance and Article V and would the Department of Defense would follow orders to occupy Canada.

In order for a NATO nation to invoke Article V, all 32 members, including the U.S., need to agree. Even if procedurally there was a way to negate the U.S. vote, it would only take the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, or the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, to vote no.

NATO’s ability to respond militarily would also be blunted. On Saturday, the U.S. has hobbled Ukraine’s F-16s by no longer providing sustainment to the aircraft. While the rumors of an F-35 killswitch are untrue, the U.S. can cut access to military GPS, intelligence, parts, and sustainment. Any response from Europe would require crossing an ocean.

As for the Department of Defense, leadership is being replaced by Trump loyalists to cement the President’s control over the military. The red line that every servicemember swears an oath to the Consitution, and not a man, is slowly being erased.

The biggest danger of all is most Americans who are reading this will think this is insanity. Why would the U.S. invade Canada? We're practically brothers! A joint identity for almost 200 years.

The United States is now what the conspiracy theorists on both fringes said the U.S. was and blathered that Trump would fix—an unreliable power destroying itself at breakneck speed with imperialistic goals.

As for political opposition, in the first 47 days of Trump’s second term, it has been little more than a whimper. The only people who can stop this are the American people.

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