Influential leader of Canada's Ontario province seeks Trump, Musk meeting: US 'needs us like we need them'
OTTAWA-After President-elect Trump mused about using "economic force" to acquire Canada as the 51st state during his Mar-a-Lago news conference on Tuesday, outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded on social media that "there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States."
However, as Trudeau announced on Monday his plan to resign as prime minister once the Liberal Party that he leads chooses his successor, the biggest pushback to Trump’s pitch to annex Canada – and his planned 25% tariffs on exports from the country – has come from the premier of Canada’s most populous province, Ontario.
Doug Ford, a former businessman and conservative like Trump who has served as Ontario’s 26th premier since 2018, told Fox News Digital in an interview that the president-elect’s targeting Canada is both "crazy" and "ridiculous."
He said the bilateral focus should be on "strengthening" what the Canadian government calls a nearly trillion-dollar two-way trade relationship to "make the U.S. and Canada the richest and most prosperous jurisdiction in the world."
At a Toronto news conference on Monday following Trudeau’s resignation announcement, Ford chided Trump with a "counteroffer" to his Canada-as-a-51st state idea.
"How about if we buy Alaska and throw in Minnesota?" the premier said at Queen’s Park, Ontario’s legislature.
Ford jokingly told Fox News Digital that he heard from Canadians after making those remarks that he should have chosen "somewhere warmer, like Florida or California."
"California never votes for him anyway," he added.
At his Monday news conference, Ontario’s premier said that "under my watch," annexing Canada "will never, ever happen."
Ford is also taking Trump’s tariff threat seriously.
Last month, his Progressive Conservative government launched a multimillion-dollar U.S. ad campaign on television and streaming apps touting Ontario as an "ally" to generate "more workers, more trade, more prosperity, more security."
"You can rely on Ontario for energy to power your growing economy, and for the critical minerals crucial to new technologies," says the 60-second ad.
Ford said the 25% tariff against Canada, which Trump plans to implement on his first day in office on Jan. 20, would hurt millions of American and Canadian workers.
"Nine million Americans produce products for Ontario alone every single day," he said. "The problem is China shipping goods into Mexico and Mexico slapping a made-in-Mexico sticker."
Ontario is ready to take retaliatory measures "that will really send a message to the U.S." in response to the imposition of U.S. tariffs, said Ford, who was involved in the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement during the first Trump administration, but would now like Canada to have separate deals with the U.S. and Mexico.
"It’s unfortunate because retaliation is not good for either country," he offered, noting that Ontario is the top exporter to 17 states and the second largest to 11 others.
"The last thing I want to do is hurt those people," said Ford. "I want to create more jobs in the U.S., more jobs in Canada. And we can do that by making sure that we toughen up and put tariffs on places like China."
By way of example, he said that "someone in Texas who purchased a GM pickup truck made in Oshawa, [Ontario] might have paid between $50,000 and $60,000," and with a tariff, "would be paying 70 some-odd thousand."
"It just doesn’t make sense whatsoever," Ford said.
He would like to have a face-to-face meeting with Trump and said he has reached out to U.S. senators and governors to make that happen. A sit-down with SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk – whom Trump appointed to co-lead, with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, the proposed "Department of Government Efficiency" – is also on Ford’s wish-list.
Ford said Trump "doesn’t realize" that Ontario is the U.S.’s third-largest trading partner, amounting to about US$344 billion in 2023, "split equally down the center."
Ontario’s premier said he wants to ship more electricity and critical minerals to the U.S., which "needs us like we need them."
TRUMP REACTS TO TRUDEAU RESIGNATION: ‘MANY PEOPLE IN CANADA LOVE BEING THE 51ST STATE’
In 2012, the premier and his late brother, Rob, who was mayor of Toronto at the time, met Trump, along with his daughter, Ivanka, when they were in the city to open the former Trump International Hotel and Tower, now unaffiliated with The Trump Organization and known as The St. Regis Toronto.
Ford, who ran a Toronto-based family business, Deco Labels & Flexible Packaging, before entering municipal politics as a city councilor in 2010, considers Trump "a shrewd operator" and "a smart businessperson."
The incoming president "knows about Ontario," the premier said.
"Not one senator, not one governor, not one congressperson or businessperson, has said that Canada is a problem," said Ford, who opened a Deco branch in Chicago in 1999.
He said Trump has not set his sights on such other U.S. allies as the United Kingdom and France, but "wants to target" the U.S.’s "closest friend," Canada.
"I’m not too sure if it’s personal against Trudeau, but Trudeau is on his way out, so hopefully we’ll have a better conversation," said Ontario’s premier, who added that he would consider taking a run at federal politics in the future.
On Monday, Trump posted on Truth Social that "the United States can no longer suffer the massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat."
"Justin Trudeau knows this, and resigned," said the next, and 47th, U.S. president.
But Trudeau is still the prime minister, and Ford and the premiers of the other nine provinces and three territories will meet with him next Wednesday in Ottawa to address the Trump tariff issue.
Despite his departure as prime minister sometime over the next two months when the next Liberal leader is expected to be chosen, Trudeau should not think "he’s off the hook" and Canadian premiers "will hold his feet to the fire" in ensuring that Canada is ready to respond to the Trump administration’s imminent and punitive trade measure, said Ford.
He chairs the Council of the Federation – a gathering of Canada’s premiers, which has kept Canada-U.S. relations top of mind and has made avoiding U.S. tariffs "a priority," according to a statement issued last month.
"Canada and the U.S. form one of the largest integrated markets in the world, with more than C$3.5 billion [about US$2.4 billion] worth of goods and services crossing the border each day. The U.S. sells more goods and services to Canada than it sells to China, Japan and Germany combined."
To help assuage Trump’s concerns over border security, Ford’s government launched on Tuesday "Operation Deterrence," to crack down on illegal crossings, and drugs and guns – 90% of which are entering Ontario from the U.S., the premier told Fox News Digital.
On drugs, he said his government is also collaborating with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to identify the source of fentanyl ingredients – and whether they originated in "China or Mexico or the U.S."
Last month, the Trudeau government announced its own border-security plan.