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Canada as the 51st State: Trump's Absurd Vision [1]
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Date: 2025-01-15
With the incoming Trump administration, there is a litany of inane ideas being thrown around. As I noted earlier this week, the nominations of Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr. are just one example of this insanity. However, there is another idea proposed by President-elect Trump that is even more ridiculous: the annexation of Canada. In a post on Truth Social, Trump falsely claimed that Canadians wants to join the United States as the 51st state.
No one can answer why we subsidize Canada to the tune of over $100,000,000 a year? Makes no sense! Many Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State. They would save massively on taxes and military protection. I think it is a great idea. 51st State!!! 1
Getting Statistics Wrong
The argument, if there is one, is that the United States is subsidizing the Canadian government for no reason and to an extreme extent. Through this supposedly extreme subsidizing project, the U.S. is wasting money when it could simply make Canada a part of the United States. This argument is not only flawed and imperialistic, but it is also blatantly false.
The United States hasn’t provided anywhere near the amount of aid to Canada that Trump is suggesting. According to Snopes, the United States hasn’t spent anywhere near $35.1 million since 2001. The most recent data available shows that between October of 2021 and September of 2022, the total amount of aid sent to Canada was roughly $32 million in aid to Canada. In the simplest of terms, the U.S. is not providing anywhere near the amount of money that Trump suggests. 2
Even if he was correct, it still wouldn’t justify his core contention: that Canada should be part of the United States. While Trump argues that Canadians want to join the United States, the reality is much different. A December poll found that 82 percent of Canadians oppose Canada becoming a state, with only 13 percent saying they support the move. 3 Canadians don’t want to be part of the United States.
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