(LifeSiteNews) – Canadian Minister of Defence Bill Blair brushed off more threats made by U.S. President Donald Trump that he wants his northern neighbor to be the 51st U.S. state, saying they are not “real” threats despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claiming otherwise.
“I do not believe that that represents a real threat to us,” Blair told reporters on February 12 while in Belgium to attend NATO meetings.
Blair added that Canada is “concerned about those remarks” but said Canada’s allies are ready to “stand up for our country.”
Despite Blair’s assertion that Trump’s threats are not “real,” Trudeau has stated otherwise.
Recently, Trudeau was overheard after a microphone was left on at the Canada-U.S. Economic Summit that Trump’s threat to take over his Canada is a “real thing.”
“I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have but that may be even why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state,” Trudeau purportedly said.
In recent weeks, Trump has mentioned multiple times his desire to annex Canada and turn it into a state.
While Trump’s comments were initially passed off as a joke or not serious, his persistently referring to Canada as the “51st state” and threatening to use “economic force” to overtake Canada has been met with bipartisan opposition from Canadian officials.
Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre, a frontrunner for prime minister in the next election, has had choice words for Trump, vowing that Canada will “never” become a U.S. “state.”
Trump’s talk of taking over Canada by economic force comes at the same time he has threatened to impose massive tariffs on the nation.
Canada was given a 30-day reprieve from 25 percent tariffs by Trump after Trudeau promised in a call to increase border security and crack down on fentanyl at the border. However, Trump has imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum products.
All of Canada’s mainstream opposition political parties as well as some MPs have advocated for counter-tariffs, including in some cases extreme retaliatory responses such as taxing Tesla 100 percent, as advocated by Liberal MP and leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland.
Poilievre said Canada needs swift imposition of “dollar-for-dollar” counter-tariffs against the United States.
However, not all political parties feel counter tariffs are a good thing.
As reported by LifeSiteNews earlier this week, People’s Party of Canada (PPC) leader Maxime Bernier said the best response to Trump’s threats of punitive tariffs is to not “retaliate” tit for tat, as other parties have suggested, but rather to get serious about border and immigration control to quell the drug trade.