Donald Trump has made his strongest bid yet to take over Canada, offering the Canadian people a 60 percent tax cut if they agree to join the US and become the 51st US state.
The president-elect has in recent days suggested a territorial expansion into Canada, Greenland and Panama, and has mocked prime minister Justin Trudeau by calling him ‘governor.’
On Christmas, Trump escalated his campaigns against the governments of both Panama and Canada.
‘Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal (where we lost 38,000 people in its building 110 years ago), always making certain that the United States puts in Billions of Dollars in “repair” money, but will have absolutely nothing to say about “anything,”‘ Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.
‘Also, to Governor Justin Trudeau of Canada, whose Citizens’ Taxes are far too high, but if Canada was to become our 51st State, their Taxes would be cut by more than 60%, their businesses would immediately double in size, and they would be militarily protected like no other Country anywhere in the World.
‘Likewise, to the people of Greenland, which is needed by the United States for National Security purposes and, who want the U.S. to be there, and we will!’
Trump recently posted that ‘Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State’ and offered an image of himself superimposed on a mountaintop surveying surrounding territory next to a Canadian flag.
Trudeau has suggested that Trump was joking about annexing his country, but the pair met recently at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to discuss Trump’s threats to impose a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian goods.
Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who attended the Friday dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, said Trump’s comments were in jest.
‘The president was telling jokes. The president was teasing us. It was, of course, on that issue, in no way a serious comment,’ LeBlanc told reporters in Ottawa.
Trump made the stark declaration on Sunday night that he would like to purchase Greenland as he announced his pick for ambassador to Denmark, PayPal co-founder Ken Howery.
‘For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,’ he wrote on Truth Social.
Trump expressed interest in buying Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, during his first presidential term.
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He was publicly rebuffed by Danish authorities – who reiterated the island was ‘open for business, not for sale’ – before any conversations could take place.
The Danish Prime Minister’s Office said in its own statement that the government is ‘looking forward to welcoming the new American ambassador. And the Government is looking forward to working with the new administration.’
‘In a complex security political situation as the one we currently experience, transatlantic cooperation is crucial,’ the statement said. It noted that it had no comment on Greenland except for it “not being for sale, but open for cooperation.’
Trump again having designs on Greenland comes after the president-elect suggested over the weekend that the US could retake control of the Panama Canal if something isn’t done to ease rising shipping costs required for using the waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Panama President José Raúl Mulino responded in a video that ‘every square meter of the canal belongs to Panama and will continue to,’ but Trump fired back on his social media site, ‘We’ll see about that!’