Trump says Canada will be 51st state at Arizona rally

U.S. President Donald Trump told a campaign rally in Bullhead City, Ariz., on Wednesday that Canada will “end up being the 51st state,” saying “that’s the only way it works,” in his latest annexation remark since the two countries’ trade talks collapsed.

He also said the United States was losing “billions of dollars” supporting Canada. Official U.S. figures put the 2025 trade imbalance with Canada at about US$20.6 billion, far below the amounts he cited.

Trump spoke on Oct. 14 at Laughlin Bullhead International Airport, less than three weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. The rally was listed on the Republican National Committee’s website, News 3 LV reported.

“Canada treats us very badly. They always have. Not anymore,” Trump said, according to The Canadian Press. He said Canada “ripped off” the United States through tariffs on milk, citing “anything past two bottles,” and said car companies were moving factories to the U.S.

The Canadian Press also reported that Trump raised renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” and said Canada would be “doing something just like Greenland.” BNN Bloomberg also confirmed the Greenland and milk remarks. The reports contain excerpts, not a full transcript of the rally.

Culture Alberta, which reported the same remarks, quoted Trump as asking why the United States should lose “80, 90, 100 billion dollars a year to support a country that isn’t one of us.” That quote appears in that outlet’s report only and was not confirmed in the Canadian Press excerpts.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office says the United States ran a goods trade deficit of US$48.3 billion with Canada in 2025, down 21 per cent from 2024. It ran a services trade surplus of US$27.7 billion. Netting the two gives a combined deficit of about US$20.6 billion on total goods and services trade of US$872.3 billion, according to the USTR’s Canada page.

No response from Prime Minister Mark Carney to the rally remarks was available in the reports reviewed. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, reacting to an earlier round of “51st state” comments by Trump, said the president was “back on his high horse” and that annexation would “never, ever” happen, the Canadian Press reported. B.C. Premier David Eby has announced “never the 51st state” signs for border crossings.

The remarks come as relations remain strained. Canada began imposing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods on Sept. 8 after talks collapsed in August, as CNBC reported on Aug. 22. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said last month that Ontario would be the “last out of our 51st states.”

U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said on the same day that some Canadian politicians’ actions “could be inferred to be election interference” in close midterm races, as we reported in Hoekstra warns Canada to stay out of U.S. midterms. A B.C. industry council said last week that U.S. duties on Canadian lumber were near 35 per cent, as we reported in U.S. duties on Canadian lumber near 35%, B.C. council says.

Trump has made similar statements about Canada before. Carney has previously said Ottawa will not respond to every Trump remark, Culture Alberta reported, and the Canadian government has not announced a formal response to the rally comments.

The midterm elections on Nov. 3 are the next date to watch, along with any new round of U.S.-Canada trade talks, which have not been scheduled.

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Via The Canadian Press, BNN Bloomberg, News 3 LV, Culture Alberta and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.