When Justin Trudeau visited Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in November, the newly elected president’s proposal that Canada should become a US state seemed little more than a joke.
“I started to suggest that maybe there could be a trade for Vermont or California,” the Canadian prime minister told MSNBC. “He immediately decided that it was not that funny any more and we moved on to a different conversation.”
A month since Trump’s return to the White House, Trudeau’s levity has vanished. The annexation threats are “a real thing”, he was caught saying on a hot mic last week as Washington ratcheted up the rhetoric. Trudeau added that Trump had designs on Canada’s mineral wealth.