(Photo courtesy of AP News) “United States and Canadian flags flying side by side”

Tristin Henson

Connector Staff

Trump has stated multiple times that he was willing to use military force to acquire the Panama Canal and Greenland, and during his signing of executive orders, he also suggested that he might want property in Gaza. Another country that he also mentioned wanting to acquire was Canada, stating that he wanted to use “economic force” to annex Canada from our allies and then, later on, that he wanted to take Canada as the 51st U.S. state. Trump stated that he wants Canada for “national security and because we’re spending hundreds of billions here to protect it,” possibly referring to his complaints about NATO allies’ not paying enough for defense spending. He could also possibly be referring to our shared military alliance through the North American Aerospace Defense Command with Canada (NBC News, 2025). Trump wanting to annex Canada and then acquire the nation came as a shock to a lot of people, and most people thought it a joke until recently, as Canada has been a long-time ally and trading partner for the United States. Teddy Hartling, a student at UMass Lowell commented his thoughts on the matter: “It’s extremely irresponsible…Canada is not only one of our main trading partners economically and a large importer of crude oil, but on top of that…it is insanely stupid to start testing waters with the country that borders us directly. There have been documents that have been signed in regards to trading agreements that have been blatantly violated by this administration…I don’t think an administration should overhaul a complete relationship that we’ve had with a partner for years.”

Trump mentioned that he still wanted to go through with his plan to acquire Canada in an interview he did right before the Super Bowl. “Yeah it is,” Trump told Fox News when asked whether his talk of annexing Canada is “a real thing” (AP News, 2025). Now, while not impossible, it would take a lot of effort for Canada to become a U.S. state. First of all, Canada would most likely have to gauge voter’s interest in joining the U.S., which would be very unlikely at this moment, given how Canadians have reacted to Trump declaring that he wants Canada. Canadian sports fans have started booing the U.S. national anthem at NBA and NHL games, U.S. products have started getting taken down or boycotted in stores across Canada partially in response to the raised tariffs, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford sarcastically joked about buying U.S. states in response to Trump. How the Trump administration is acting towards the U.S.’s long-time ally could be seen very negatively by other U.S. allies, as well as other countries in general. If diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Canada sour, which they may already have, then there might be cause for concern at the international level as well. Needless to say, Canada’s voter interests don’t seem to be aligned with joining the U.S. at the moment, and they feel very disrespected on an international level thanks to the statements Trump has put out. Hartling commented on this, saying: “Well, I think it destroys diplomatic relations with a neighboring trading partner that we’ve had for decades…The Trump administration is having a ‘whose-balls-are-the-biggest’ contest when the world just doesn’t want to see their balls.” Something else that would need to happen for Canada to become a U.S. state would be Congress accepting a new state (which would take only a House majority, but because of filibuster rules, a minimum of 60 would be required to bring the bill to the floor), and, of course, after that cleared Congress, the bill would also need to be signed into law by the president. 

There is currently no legislation to try and acquire Canada as the 51st U.S. state. Despite all that, Trump and some other Republican Senators have kept up this talk of taking Canada. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham joked on Twitter/X when all 50 states certified Trump’s Electoral College victory, “They skipped Canada. We’ll fix that next time!” Senator Tommy Tuberville even praised the idea, saying, “It’d be like Hawaii…Nice weather. I think it’s all about national security, and so that’s all it’s about.” When asked why he thought that Trump and these Senators were still talking about this, Hartling stated, “I think that they’re [expletive]  stupid…I think it’s a blatant waste of time where they know it’s a waste of time they are simply memeifying and trolling at the public office level for no reason other than to try to get a few laughs. They know nothing is going to happen…the level of nationalism in this country, in particular, that has been further emulated by our elected officials, is insane… We are entertaining prospects that we know flat out will not happen and spending valuable time that could be used towards actually enacting change in legislation…”

Trump also stated that he wants to “to erase the 5,525-mile-long border that separates the two countries,” which is a stark difference to his views on Mexico, a very famous statement of his being to “build a wall” across from Mexico. When asked his opinions on this, Hartling said, “Why do I think that is? Duhhh, he’s racist… I think it’s very obvious that the Trump administration has crafted a narrative against immigrants, and it’s been very easy to create that narrative that Mexicans or people that are coming from Southern America are the problem, that they’re bringing in drugs, and because they are people of color compared to Canadians [who are primarily white] (Statistics Canada, 2022)… It’s very easy for a country like the United States, which has a very racist history, to respin up the narrative that a minority group is the cause of a problem…it’s a lot easier to convince white people to hate brown people than it is for white people to hate white people.”