In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, while I was sleeping, President-elect Donald Trump was typing up this message on his Truth Social platform:
“Governor”! “Great State of Canada”!
In case you don’t get the reference, here’s the back story: At a meeting between Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau late last month, the president-elect “joked” about our neighbor to the north becoming the 51st state.
Here’s how Fox News covered it:
President-elect Trump suggested to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week that if a tariff for failing to address trade and immigration issues would kill the neighbor to the north’s economy, maybe it should become the 51st state, sources told Fox News.
The Canadians were quick to dismiss the idea. “The president was telling jokes,” insisted Canadian Public Safety Minister Dominic Leblanc. “The president was teasing us. It was, of course, on that issue, in no way a serious comment.”
Which, well, sort of.
Look, I don’t think Trump believes he is going to annex Canada and turn it into a state. But what I DO think is that he is using his tried and true tactics of trolling and bullying to belittle Trudeau.
Trump likes to be the big guy in any room. The boss. The strong one. Which means, by his calculus, everyone else needs to feel weaker or lesser than.
Need I remind you of this move that Trump pulled with the prime minister of Montenegro at a NATO gathering during his presidency?
Everything is about asserting dominance. In fact, Trump ran expressly in 2024 on the idea that both our allies and enemies didn’t respect Joe Biden and weren’t afraid of him.
The purposeful rhetorical bullying of Trudeau then makes perfect sense. If everything is a negotiation and the key to negotiation is having the higher ground or, really, the stronger hand, Trump is making sure that he has it. Even if the way he is trying to get it is, well, more than a little childish.
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