Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he spoke with Donald Trump about the president-elect’s talk of turning the northern nation into America’s 51st state when the two met at Mar-a-Lago in November.
“It actually sort of came up at one point,” Trudeau told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki in an interview that aired on Sunday. “And then we started musing back and forth about this.”
But it came to a quick halt after Trudeau jokingly made Trump an offer.
“And when I started to suggest, ‘Well, maybe there could be a trade for Vermont or California for certain part,’ he immediately decided that it was not that funny anymore, and we moved on to a different conversation,” he said.
Trudeau said he had to take Trump’s calls for Canada to become a state seriously, but at the same time dismissed it.
“That’s not going to happen,” he said. “It’s just a nonstarter, Canadians are incredibly proud of being Canadian.”
He called it a distraction from real issues such as Trump’s threat to place tariffs on Canadian goods.
Trump has called Canada the “51st state,” referred to Trudeau as its governor and suggested that NHL legend Wayne Gretzky run for prime minister as he threatens a trade war with the nation.
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See Trudeau’s full conversation with Psaki below: