United States President Donald Trump held a virtual speech to the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos this morning. Trump claimed that if Canada became the 51st state of America, tariffs could be avoided. “You can always become a state, and if you’re a state, you won’t have a deficit. We won’t have to tariff you.” In a separate statement Trump added about Canada “We don’t need them to make our cars, and they make a lot of them. We don’t need their lumber, because we have our own forests. We don’t need their oil and gas. We have more than anybody.”
The Canadian government has said they will fight any tariffs Trump imposes on Canadian goods. The first round of retaliation tariffs would cover $37 billion of U.S. imports. This would be the least painful counter because it would do the least amount of damage to Canadians.
In his virtual speech this morning, Trump also noted that he wants NATO countries to up military spending to five per cent of GDP instead of two.
