Trump returns to ’51st state’ rhetoric in speech to U.S. military officials

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump returned to his talk of annexing Canada during an unprecedented speech to top military leaders on Tuesday.

The president was speaking about his “Golden Dome” missile defence plans in front of military officials who had been abruptly summoned from their postings around the world to Quantico, near Washington.

“Canada called me a couple of weeks ago, they want to be part of it, to which I said, ‘Well, why don’t you just join our country. You become 51 — become the 51st state — and you get it for free,'” Trump told the assembled officials.

“So, I don’t know if that made a big impact, but it does make a lot of sense.”

Trump also claimed Canada is having “a hard time up there” because “as you know, with tariffs, everyone’s coming into our country.” The president then boasted about investment leaving Canada and other countries and going into the United States, pointing to automobile plants.

Trump spent months repeatedly making statements about annexing Canada and floated using economic force to take over the country. Trump seemed to have dialed down that rhetoric more recently, as Ottawa looked to reduce tensions in the bilateral relationship and the president turned his focus elsewhere in the world.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has had multiple phone conversations with Trump over the past few months but has been tight-lipped about the substance of those conversations.

Carney paused Canada’s digital services tax in June after Trump threatened to stop trade negotiations to protest the policy. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later claimed that “Canada caved to President Trump and the United States of America.”

Two months later, Carney dropped some retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products to match American tariff exemptions for goods covered under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement on trade, better known as CUSMA. That happened after Carney spoke with Trump by phone and said the president assured him the move would help kick-start trade negotiations.

Despite Ottawa’s efforts to appease the Trump administration, no deal has materialized that would ease the pressure on Canadian industries being hit hard by tariffs.

In August, Trump struck Canada with 35 per cent tariffs on goods not compliant under CUSMA. Canada is also being slammed by Trump’s tariffs on steel, aluminum, automobiles and copper.

Looming lumber tariffs will also hammer the Canadian industry. Trump signed an executive order this week putting a 10 per cent tariff on foreign softwood lumber and timber, and a 25 per cent tariff on kitchen cabinets, vanities and upholstered wooden furniture, starting Oct. 14.

The U.S. Commerce Department increased countervailing and anti-dumping duties on Canadian lumber earlier this year.

The Prime Minister’s Office did not provide a comment about Trump’s Tuesday speech.

Carney met with Trump at the White House in May and told the president Canada would never become an American state.

The prime minister has said high-level discussions are underway with the U.S. about the Golden Dome program. Trump said initially it would cost Canada US$61 billion to join, and then later increased that price tag to US$71 billion.

Trump boasted about the planned multilayered defence system — which would be based on Israel’s Iron Dome — during his wide-ranging speech in front of hundreds of top military officials.

Trump, who is used to boisterous rally crowds, didn’t get much a of response from the military officials. In keeping with the non-partisan tradition of the U.S. armed services, the military audience stayed largely silent during his speech.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned military leaders from around the world to the Marine Corps base in Quantico on Tuesday to hear him give a speech railing against “woke” policies.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 30, 2025.

— with files from The Associated Press

Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press