OPEN LETTER OF APOLOGY TO OUR EUROPEAN ALLIES: WE’RE SORRY
As our narcissistic rageaholic president throws one tantrum after another, I send an open letter of apology to our European allies – we’re sorry we elected him. Really. Too bad he has all this power. As Trump increasingly seeks to escalate the war in Iran; our European allies, after another, are refusing to grant airport landing privileges to American military planes. Good for them. They are apparently developing the backbone to say No! to our president. Too bad the Republican senate can’t do the same thing. Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth was seen riding into the Pentagon wearing full knight’s armor, a surcoat emblazoned with Christ, the Warrior King and clutching a copy of Walter Scott’s – Ivanhoe under one arm. Interestingly enough, more knights are falling in battle as one Republican senator after another chooses to not seek re-election. Either they see the rising blue tide coming and don’t want to have their asses handed to them in a teacup; or, they have tried again and again to talk some reason to this president and have given up. They are reading the room; something Trump can’t seem to do. Probably because he gets rid of anyone who disagrees with him on any point. (“Don’t wear that, Mr. President, it makes you look fat.” “Shut up!”) This list of retiring senators is greater than any year since 2012: Republicans: Armstrong, OK, Daines, MT, Lumin, WY, Ernst, IA, Tillis, NC, Tillis, KY; Democrats: Dubin, IL, Shaheen, NH, Smith MN, and Peter, MI. What surprises me the most is that so many of these senators are central US states, the mid-west and northeast. Wow! Trumpland, Is the ground moving? Also, the number of Europeans who are saying no to Trump: Poland, Italy, Spain and France. Just like the member of the Senate who state that Trump never discussed the war with them before launching attacks, they are indicating NATO was never asked or included in any discussions about this war. There was no risk of imminent attack from Iran and therefore, they have no duty to assist. Yeah for them!!!!!! It is the greatest wish of a lot of people that the blue tide will sweep the Senate and they will in turn, sweep out the orange man. Sadly, a lot of damage has been done and will continue to be done under this administration. There will be a whole lot of apologies and fence rebuilding to do once he is gone. Sigh. Cew 4/26
The United States is Deliberately Sabotaging its Image Abroad by Gutting USAGM
Posted By Matthew Wallin on Mar 21, 2025 – ASP – American Security Project
In his second inaugural address, President Donald J. Trump proclaimed, “America will reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world.” While this may be the president’s stated intent, the actions thus far undertaken in pursuit of this goal are completely counterproductive.
Last Friday, the Trump administration issued a new executive order effectively gutting the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), dismantling America’s long-standing international broadcasters like Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Radio Free Asia. These institutions, which championed American principles, provided hope and aspiration to people in countries full of despair, and have been fundamental in supporting efforts to strengthen democracy and understanding of America all around the world. They have been key elements in generating the global respect for the United States that Trump champions. By informing the world about America, and providing quality journalism for people in countries without strong or independent media, these entities were essential to the United States’ victory in the Cold War and promoted the establishment of functioning democracies and allies for our country.
There are countless stories and data documenting people who received or still get their news from America’s government-funded broadcasters, and who can personally attest to their importance and influence. Charged with providing accurate news and information to people who otherwise might not have it, these catalysts of American influence have left an indelible impression on people yearning for real news and information. With USAGM audiences numbering greater than 400 million worldwide, the reach was enormous. But apparently, the Trump administration does not consider this worthwhile, even as China spends “at least $3 billion per year on international media” compared to the relatively meager $950 million budget request by USAGM for FY2025. Without USAGM, the U.S. is effectively ceding the information space to the oppressive regimes of Russia, China, and Iran.
This is, of course, just the latest in a deliberate effort to disarm America’s soft power capabilities and sabotage its image abroad. Russia, China, and Iran are engaged in a massive international effort to make the world safe for autocracy, and the United States just decided to disband its most effective forces against this endeavor. With the destruction of USAID, and the Congress’ refusal to stand up for the budget that it previously approved to support its vital mission, it’s as if China had succeeded in convincing the U.S. government to surrender all its best tools for commanding respect, goodwill, and influence abroad. Meanwhile, China continues to seed and cultivate its own influence through the Belt and Road, all while America looks the other way.
America’s soft power is what makes it different from its adversaries. Rather than coercing, cajoling, and corrupting countries around the world, American foreign policy should be based on attracting, asking, and advising. The United States should attract because there is inherent good and value in our system and working with the United States is preferable to falling prey to authoritarian interests. Asking (not telling) signals respect to those our country wishes to influence—by listening and demonstrating that the U.S. genuinely values them as partners, we create lower-risk environments that build life-long trade and security relationships. By advising, we offer our own expertise to improving quality of life and governance abroad, instilling American values to create partnerships that ultimately make the world a safer and more secure place. The alternative is infinitely more expensive and deadly—just ask Russia.
Review of the various things Trump has done to destabilize the American economy and gain the upper hand for himself and his cronies. It has been suggested that he resign. Likely that he will not go without a fight.
Below is an overview of the main ways Donald Trump has been criticized for destabilizing the economy and breaking or violating laws.
I. Ways Trump Has Destabilized the Economy
1. Trade Wars and Tariffs
Imposed sweeping tariffs on China, the EU, Canada, and others.
Resulted in:
Higher prices for U.S. consumers and manufacturers
Retaliatory tariffs that hurt U.S. farmers and exporters
Billions in government farm bailouts to offset losses
Economists widely agree the trade war reduced GDP growth and increased inflationary pressure.
2. Undermining Confidence in Institutions
Repeatedly attacked:
The Federal Reserve
Federal agencies
Courts and regulators
Public pressure on the Fed to manipulate interest rates weakened perceptions of U.S. monetary independence—something markets rely on for stability.
3. Government Shutdowns
Triggered the longest government shutdown in U.S. history (2018–2019) over border wall funding.
Shutdown consequences:
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed or unpaid
Billions lost in economic output
Reduced investor confidence in U.S. governance
4. Massive Increase in National Debt
Signed large tax cuts (2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) without offsetting spending cuts.
Even before COVID, deficits rose sharply.
National debt increased by ~$8 trillion during his presidency.
Undermined claims of fiscal responsibility and increased long-term economic risk.
5. COVID-19 Economic Mismanagement
Downplayed the pandemic early, creating uncertainty and delayed response.
Mixed messaging undermined consumer and business confidence.
Result:
Sharp market volatility
Historic job losses in 2020
Slower and more chaotic initial economic recovery than peer nations
II. Laws Trump Has Broken or Been Found Liable For
1. Criminal Conviction (2024)
Convicted on 34 felony counts in New York for falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments during the 2016 election.
This is a criminal conviction, not an allegation.
2. Civil Fraud Judgment (New York)
Found liable for business fraud for inflating asset values to obtain favorable loans and insurance.
Ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and interest.
Court found a persistent pattern of deception, not a one-time mistake.
3. Campaign Finance Violations (Related Conduct)
Hush-money scheme involved illegal campaign contributions (payments intended to influence the election).
Trump was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in earlier filings.
His lawyer, Michael Cohen, went to prison for the same scheme.
4. Obstruction and Abuse of Power (Impeachments)
Trump was impeached twice by the U.S. House:
First impeachment (2019):
Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress
Pressuring Ukraine to investigate a political rival
Second impeachment (2021):
Incitement of insurrection related to January 6
While the Senate did not convict, impeachment itself confirms serious constitutional violations were formally charged.
5. Election Subversion Efforts
Pressured state officials to “find votes”
Promoted false claims of election fraud
Encouraged alternate elector schemes
These actions directly undermined democratic norms and market confidence in political stability
(Some related criminal cases were pending, dismissed, or appealed depending on jurisdiction as of 2025.)
III. Why This Matters Economically
Markets depend on:
Rule of law
Predictable governance
Institutional trust
Trump’s actions—legal violations, norm-breaking, and economic unpredictability—increase risk premiums, discourage investment, and weaken long-term economic stability.
None of this addresses his repeated attempts to hush the opposition and to silence his most active critics. The latest invastion of Venezuela shows his disregard of Congress and their important role in okaying military force against other nations. Trump will not resign and will oppose any measures to get him out of office. The American people need to get clear on the real threat he poses to the American democracy and our way of life. cew
You’re reading The Briefing, Michael Waldman’s weekly newsletter. Click here to receive it in your inbox.
The presidency has seen its fair share of political retribution and self-dealing. John Adams prosecuted political dissenters. Richard Nixon had an enemies list. Joe Biden pardoned his son.
All that may pale in comparison to what we’ve seen over the past few days.
There was President Trump’s public demand that the attorney general prosecute New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA). When a top federal prosecutor did not bring charges against James and Comey, Trump pushed him out.
Meanwhile, there was the MSNBC story of Tom Homan, now the immigration “tsar,” videotaped accepting $50,000 from undercover FBI agents last year in a bag from the fast-casual chain Cava. (I’ll have a bowl of greens, please.) Trump officials shut down the investigation. Homan, yesterday, did not deny the handoff but insisted, “I did nothing criminal.”
Not to mention the New York Times report about a White House deal with the United Arab Emirates and a $2 billion investment in the Trump family crypto firm. And a new Brennan Center analysis exposing how donors have received pardons and special favors in recent months.
Some 50 years ago, Watergate featured bags of cash and the firing of a prosecutor. That took two years to unfold, not a week.
Often, but not inevitably, reform follows scandal. After Watergate, Congress passed legislation to curb abuse and constrain the imperial presidency. They ranged from special prosecutor laws to new budget powers for Congress. Nixon’s Republican successor Gerald Ford established a tradition that the Justice Department should have considerable independence in order to avoid a repeat of political prosecutions.
A half-century eroded those constraints. The Supreme Court gutted the campaign finance laws and narrowed the definition of bribery. During Trump’s first term, it became clear that the guardrails were flimsy. In this term, they might as well not exist.
Will these newest transgressions become a major issue? Endless cacophony can distract from scandal. Who can even keep track? But voters do seem to understand the link between self-dealing, abuse of power, and rights violated. In just a few months, corruption has quickly emerged as a hot issue again.
Yet it won’t be enough for politicians to merely orate about restoring the rule of law. Leary voters think, “Everyone does it.” The only way to overcome that skepticism is with action.
That’s why it is encouraging that some lawmakers have begun to stir.
Last week, Schiff reintroduced the Protecting Our Democracy Act. Passed by the House in 2021, the bill would limit contacts between the White House and the Justice Department. It would bring transparency to the pardon process. It would create clear standards for enforcing the Constitution’s emoluments clauses — the provisions, so important to the founders, that prevent presidents from receiving bribes from foreign governments. It would restore Congress’s role as a check against the kind of presidential abuse of emergency powers that has become a hallmark of this administration. And it would bolster Congress’s oversight role and reinforce its power over the purse. It was a strong measure to curb abuse of power.
The bill draws on key recommendations from a 2017 Brennan Center nonpartisan task force — led by former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman — and from Brennan Center recommendations for reforming the National Emergencies Act.
This reintroduced bill is a promising start. But reforms should keep evolving, growing stronger to address the magnitude of today’s new Gilded Age. One example: Tighter rules should be put in place to prevent the weaponization of the Justice Department against political enemies. It is illegal for presidents to order a tax audit of an individual, so they should not be able to order a criminal prosecution either. Perhaps individuals could be given standing to sue if they have been selectively prosecuted for political reasons.
As a reform era takes shape, we must all now grapple with a new and disturbing factor: a Supreme Court that previously constrained executive branch action through the “major questions” doctrine but now seems ever more eager to expand presidential power. After all, this administration’s impunity follows last year’s ruling giving presidents vast immunity from prosecution. Now we see the consequences of a judicially created lawless zone.
It might be tempting for those who are appalled by today’s abuses to quietly growl, but refuse to act, on the theory that they don’t want to limit their own power once they’re in. “After all, Trump did it, so why shouldn’t his successor?” That cynical take sounds savvy but is misguided.
The Protecting Our Democracy Act failed to pass even when the White House and Congress were in unified Democratic hands. Biden White House officials made it clear that they were not wild about a bill that would tie their hands even a bit. Count that as one more failure to harden the system against future abuse.
Wise constitutional constraints are not some self-defeating noblesse oblige. They are a key part of what makes our republic strong. Done right, enforced strongly, they constrain potential abuse not just now but into the future.
When (if!) this era of abuse ends, leaders from both parties will be called upon to enact new reforms to ensure this cannot happen again. Upon taking office, President Ford said that the end of the Watergate crisis was proof that “Our Constitution works” and “our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men.” We must make sure the same is true today.
A man closes the entrance to Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine on Oct. 3 in Baltimore because of the federal government shutdown. States are currently covering costs of some federal programs, but it’s unclear whether they will be repaid once the government reopens. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
States are doing what they generally do during a federal government shutdown: continuing to operate programs serving some of the neediest people.
That means schools are still serving federally subsidized meals and states are distributing funding for the federal food stamp program. For now.
If the shutdown drags on and federal dollars run out, states can only keep programs going for so long. States may choose to pay for some services themselves so residents keep their benefits.
But this time, state leaders have new worries about getting reimbursed for federal costs once the federal spending impasse is resolved. That’s traditionally been the practice following a shutdown, but the Trump administration’s record of pulling funding and targeting Democratic-led states has some officials worried about what comes after the shutdown.
Many states already struggled to balance their own budgets this year. And some fear going without federal reimbursement for shutdown costs could force states to make painful cuts to their own budget priorities.
Nevada State Treasurer Zach Conine, a Democrat, said the administration has not made good on its word to states in recent months — freezing some congressionally approved funding and cutting already awarded grants. So it’s likewise unclear whether the federal government will follow previous practice and reimburse states for covering shutdown costs of crucial federal programs such as food assistance.
“I think everything is a risk with this administration. … We in the states are kind of left holding the bag yet again as the federal government tries to sort out what it wants to be when it grows up,” he told Stateline.
Nevada entered the shutdown with more than $1.2 billion in reserves. Last week, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office said in a statement that state funds would be adequate to cover “a short period of time with minimal disruption to services.”
But the governor’s office said a shutdown of more than 30 days would cause more significant challenges for the state.
Lombardo’s office did not respond to Stateline’s questions. But last week, it released a three-page document on the shutdown, saying it expected the federal government to reimburse states once the budget stalemate is resolved.
While Donald Trump is waltzing around touting plans for an eloborate ballroom to match Versailles palace; thousands of Americans are on the brink of financial ruin and starvation.
USA Today – retrieved Internet 10/27/25: It’s now the second longest shutdown in history, and risks becoming the longest if it lasts until Election Day on Nov. 4. The longest shutdown ever lasted 35 days, from December 2018 to January 2019, during Trump’s first term.
More than 700,000 federal workers have been furloughed, while nearly as many workers are working without pay. Employees deemed essential to public safety, including military personnel, law enforcement officers, border patrol and air traffic controllers, are required to work regardless.
Will I still receive my Social Security check?
Yes, Social Security payments, including Supplemental Security Income and benefits for retirement, disability and survivors, continue during a government shutdown.
Because Social Security benefit programs are considered mandatory spending by law, they are not impacted by the lapse in funding appropriations. Payments are still distributed on a regular schedule during the shutdown.
Social Security offices are still open during the shutdown, but only some services are available.
States issue warning about heating concerns
Winter is certainly coming, but there’s no clear path yet to ending the government shutdown. In the meantime, states are sending out an SOS to keep millions of Americans from freezing soon.
Get the latest story from Susan Page right in your inbox.
The National Energy Assistance Directors Association, representing state directors of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, said last week it’s urging electric and gas utilities nationwide to immediately suspend service disconnections for nonpayment until federal LIHEAP funds are released and households regain access to financial assistance.
The shutdown, which began Oct. 1 and is on pace to become the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, has delayed the release of energy aid, leaving some of the nation’s poorest families without the support they rely on to heat their homes as colder weather approaches, NEADA said. At the same time, electricity and natural gas prices have risen sharply, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/10/27/governm
Based on recent reports, several Republican representatives from Arizona voted in favor of a budget resolution that included cuts to Medicaid:
Juan Ciscomani: Representative Ciscomani, representing Tucson, voted for the legislation despite concerns and even co-signing a letter asking for no cuts to Medicaid. He has stated that the bill strengthens and protects Medicaid by tackling waste and fraud, implementing work requirements and stronger eligibility verification.
David Schweikert: Representative Schweikert, whose district includes Scottsdale, voted for the bill despite pressure from constituents to oppose it.
Eli Crane: Representative Crane, representing the Navajo Nation, voted for the cuts, which could leave a significant portion of his constituents at risk of losing coverage.
These votes have drawn criticism, particularly due to the potential impact on vulnerable populations and rural hospitals that rely on Medicaid funding. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has identified these districts as potentially vulnerable in upcoming elections.
It’s important to note that the term “Trump’s anti-Medicaid bill” is a characterization used by opponents of the legislation. Supporters argue that the bill includes measures to strengthen and protect Medicaid by tackling waste, fraud, and abuse.
ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (Noa) using AI narration. Listen to more stories on the Noa app.
To support The Atlantic’s journalism, please consider subscribing today.
Rhetoric has a history. The words democracy and tyranny were debated in ancient Greece; the phrase separation of powers became important in the 17th and 18th centuries. The word vermin, as a political term, dates from the 1930s and ’40s, when both fascists and communists liked to describe their political enemies as vermin, parasites, and blood infections, as well as insects, weeds, dirt, and animals. The term has been revived and reanimated, in an American presidential campaign, with Donald Trump’s description of his opponents as “radical-left thugs” who “live like vermin.”
This language isn’t merely ugly or repellent: These words belong to a particular tradition. Adolf Hitler used these kinds of terms often. In 1938, he praised his compatriots who had helped “cleanse Germany of all those parasites who drank at the well of the despair of the Fatherland and the People.” In occupied Warsaw, a 1941 poster displayed a drawing of a louse with a caricature of a Jewish face. The slogan: “Jews are lice: they cause typhus.” Germans, by contrast, were clean, pure, healthy, and vermin-free. Hitler once described the Nazi flag as “the victorious sign of freedom and the purity of our blood.”
Stalin used the same kind of language at about the same time. He called his opponents the “enemies of the people,” implying that they were not citizens and that they enjoyed no rights. He portrayed them as vermin, pollution, filth that had to be “subjected to ongoing purification,” and he inspired his fellow communists to employ similar rhetoric. In my files, I have the notes from a 1955 meeting of the leaders of the Stasi, the East German secret police, during which one of them called for a struggle against “vermin activities” (there is, inevitably, a German word for this: Schädlingstätigkeiten), by which he meant the purge and arrest of the regime’s critics. In this same era, the Stasi forcibly moved suspicious people away from the border with West Germany, a project nicknamed “Operation Vermin.”
This kind of language was not limited to Europe. Mao Zedong also described his political opponents as “poisonous weeds.” Pol Pot spoke of “cleansing” hundreds of thousands of his compatriots so that Cambodia would be “purified.”
In each of these very different societies, the purpose of this kind of rhetoric was the same. If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals, if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria, then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them. If they are parasites, they aren’t human. If they are vermin, they don’t get to enjoy freedom of speech, or freedoms of any kind. And if you squash them, you won’t be held accountable.
Until recently, this kind of language was not a normal part of American presidential politics. Even George Wallace’s notorious, racist, neo-Confederate 1963 speech, his inaugural speech as Alabama governor and the prelude to his first presidential campaign, avoided such language. Wallace called for “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” But he did not speak of his political opponents as “vermin” or talk about them poisoning the nation’s blood. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps following the outbreak of World War II, spoke of “alien enemies” but not parasites.
In the 2024 campaign, that line has been crossed. Trump blurs the distinction between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants—the latter including his wife, his late ex-wife, the in-laws of his running mate, and many others. He has said of immigrants, “They’re poisoning the blood of our country” and “They’re destroying the blood of our country.” He has claimed that many have “bad genes.” He has also been more explicit: “They’re not humans; they’re animals”; they are “cold-blooded killers.” He refers more broadly to his opponents—American citizens, some of whom are elected officials—as “the enemy from within … sick people, radical-left lunatics.” Not only do they have no rights; they should be “handled by,” he has said, “if necessary, National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”
In using this language, Trump knows exactly what he is doing. He understands which era and what kind of politics this language evokes. “I haven’t read Mein Kampf,” he declared, unprovoked, during one rally—an admission that he knows what Hitler’s manifesto contains, whether or not he has actually read it. “If you don’t use certain rhetoric,” he told an interviewer, “if you don’t use certain words, and maybe they’re not very nice words, nothing will happen.”
His talk of mass deportation is equally calculating. When he suggests that he would target both legal and illegal immigrants, or use the military arbitrarily against U.S. citizens, he does so knowing that past dictatorships have used public displays of violence to build popular support. By calling for mass violence, he hints at his admiration for these dictatorships but also demonstrates disdain for the rule of law and prepares his followers to accept the idea that his regime could, like its predecessors, break the law with impunity.
These are not jokes, and Trump is not laughing. Nor are the people around him. Delegates at the Republican National Convention held up prefabricated signs: Mass Deportation Now. Just this week, when Trump was swaying to music at a surreal rally, he did so in front of a huge slogan: Trump Was Right About Everything. This is language borrowed directly from Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist. Soon after the rally, the scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat posted a photograph of a building in Mussolini’s Italy displaying his slogan: Mussolini Is Always Right.
The Atlantic Daily: The atmosphere of a Trump rally
These phrases have not been put on posters and banners at random in the final weeks of an American election season. With less than three weeks left to go, most candidates would be fighting for the middle ground, for the swing voters. Trump is doing the exact opposite. Why? There can be only one answer: because he and his campaign team believe that by using the tactics of the 1930s, they can win. The deliberate dehumanization of whole groups of people; the references to police, to violence, to the “bloodbath” that Trump has said will unfold if he doesn’t win; the cultivation of hatred not only against immigrants but also against political opponents—none of this has been used successfully in modern American politics.
But neither has this rhetoric been tried in modern American politics. Several generations of American politicians have assumed that American voters, most of whom learned to pledge allegiance to the flag in school, grew up with the rule of law, and have never experienced occupation or invasion, would be resistant to this kind of language and imagery. Trump is gambling—knowingly and cynically—that we are not.
Alison is a senior news reporter covering US politics and legal news.
Follow
5
Feb 9, 2025,04:48pm EST
Updated Feb 10, 2025, 11:24am EST
President Donald Trump is serious about his repeated suggestions that Canada should become the U.S.’ “51st state,” he confirmed in an interview that aired before the Super Bowl on Sunday, after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned the country’s business leaders Trump’s desire to absorb the northern country—which had been taken as a joke—is a “real thing.”
President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shake hands during a meeting in … [+]
AFP via Getty Images
Key Facts
Fox News host Bret Baier asked Trump whether Trudeau was right in telling business leaders the U.S. president’s threat to absorb Canada is a “real thing,” to which Trump agreed with Trudeau and responded, “Yes it is.”
Trump claimed Canada “would be much better off” being a U.S. state and complained about the $200 billion the U.S. pays to Canada each year, a number the Trump administration has previously said is based on the amount the U.S. spends on defense, which Canada benefits from, plus the U.S.’ trade deficit with Canada.
“I’m not gonna let that happen,” Trump said about the money the U.S. gives to Canada, claiming the U.S. is paying money “essentially in subsidy to Canada” and adding, “Now, if they’re the 51st state, I don’t mind doing it.”
Trump has repeatedly suggested in recent months he wants the U.S. to absorb Canada, referring to the country as the “51st state” and to Trudeau as a “governor,” rather than prime minister.
While those comments have largely been downplayed as Trump not being serious or just trying to negotiate with Canada, Trudeau reportedly warned business leaders Friday to take the president’s threats seriously, claiming Trump’s desire to absorb Canada is a “real thing.”
Trudeau pointed to Canada’s natural resources and claimed the Trump administration is “very aware of our resources, of what we have and they very much want to be able to benefit from those,” arguing Trump “has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country.”
The video player is currently playing an ad.
Crucial Quote
“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 reportedly told attendees at a summit of business and labor leaders Friday, as quoted by The Guardian, which reports Trudeau “hastily” called the meeting to coordinate the country’s response to Trump’s threat of 25% tariffs on Canadian imports.
What Have Trump Officials Said?
Trump’s National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett also suggested Monday the president could be serious about wanting to annex Canada, arguing to CNBC the U.S. didn’t begin with 50 states. “When the US was founded, how many states did we have? And how many do we have now?” Hassett said. “And so, is it outlandish?”
webby1dotnet 