Donald Trump responded to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s warning that both Canadians and Americans might seriously suffer from the president-elect’s tariffs with respect and seriousness—just kidding: Trump actually responded by cracking a joke.
Trudeau dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago Friday, and warned the president-elect that his plan to impose a 25 percent tariff on goods imported into the United States from Canada would be disastrous for both countries, echoing similar warnings from economists.
Fox News’s Peter Doocy reported Monday that destroying global economies is just one big joke to Trump.
“When Trudeau told President-elect Trump that new tariffs would ‘kill’ the Canadian economy, Trump joked to him that if Canada can’t survive without ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100 billion a year, then maybe Canada should become the fifty-first state and Trudeau should become its governor,” Doocy said.
Sources told Fox News that when someone at the table reminded Trump that Canada would be a liberal state, the president-elect conceded that Canada could be split into two states: a liberal one and a conservative one.
Trudeau had traveled to Mar-a-Lago in the hopes of getting Trump to back off his tariff plan for Canada by reminding the president-elect that the U.S. border with Canada is very different from its one with Mexico. Such sentiments didn’t please Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who responded by insisting that Mexico “must be respected, especially by its trading partners.”
If implemented, Trump’s plan to impose 25 percent tariffs on all goods from Mexico and Canada would result in an estimated loss of $250.6 billion in annual U.S. gross domestic product and approximately 1.97 million jobs, according to Ray Perryman, the CEO of the financial analysis firm the Perryman Group. The tariffs would also disproportionately affect border states with more integrated economies—such as Texas.
