Anand says U.S. secretary Rubio has avoided ’51st state’ chatter as G7 meeting looms

WASHINGTON — Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hasn’t repeated President Donald Trump’s musings about making Canada the 51st state during their conversations.

Anand said Monday that Rubio “has not raised this with me verbatim or even insinuated it.”

She will welcome Rubio and other foreign ministers from Group of Seven countries to Ontario’s Niagara region Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss shared economic and security challenges amid global uncertainty.

“We are on a playing field where we want to engage on the crucial issues confronting our countries and the world at large,” Anand said in an interview. “And we are all, as G7 partners, coming to the table in good faith to push these crucial issues at a very volatile moment geopolitically.”

The Canada-U.S. relationship has been strained by Trump’s growing tariff agenda and threats of annexation.

Talk of Canadian sovereignty cast a shadow over the G7 foreign ministers meeting in March in Quebec, where Rubio told reporters that Trump felt Canada should join the United States for “economic purposes.”

Rubio said at the time that the G7 gathering was not a meeting to discuss Trump’s comments about annexation. But he noted he had spoken with Mélanie Joly, then Canada’s foreign affairs minister, about the issue.

Trump himself did not engage in “51st state” taunts in conversations with Prime Minister Mark Carney while attending the G7 leaders summit in Alberta in June. Carney told reporters then that the president showed respect for Canadian sovereignty.

The U.S. State Department said Monday that Rubio was attending the G7 meeting to advance American interests in peace and security, strategic co-operation and global stability.

The department said in a media statement that Rubio’s discussions would focus on “advancing President Trump’s peace initiatives in Ukraine and Gaza, maritime security, Haiti, Sudan, supply chain resiliency, and critical minerals.”

Carney has tried to stabilize Canada’s relationship with the United States and received wide praise from the president during a meeting at the White House in October.

The positive glow did not last long. Trump again suspended negotiations with Canada last month after Ontario sponsored a TV ad that featured former American president Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs.

Anand did not say whether she would be talking with Rubio about how to re-energize those negotiations, adding the trade file is led by Canada-U.S. Minister Dominic LeBlanc.

Anand said the G7 summit is a multilateral effort focused on an array of issues, from critical minerals and Arctic security to Gaza. She said the work must continue, regardless of the “status of the trade file.”

“The relationship between Canada and the United States is extremely complex and it has been in place for decades and decades,” Anand said. “We cannot ignore the number of issues where the United States and Canada do work together.”

Canada, which holds the presidency of the G7 this year, also chose to invite foreign ministers from several other countries to this week’s meetings. They include Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, South Africa and Ukraine.

To lessen Canada’s dependency on trade with the United States amid Trump’s protectionism and duties, Carney and Anand have been working to reset relations with India. Those ties dissolved rapidly in 2023 after the murder of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil.

Carney’s efforts to restore the relationship with India has received some pushback. Advocacy organization Sikhs For Justice says it is planning a round-the-clock picket during the G7 meetings.

Anand said additional countries from different regions were included to ensure a “vibrant and useful comprehensive conversation” at the G7 summit.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 10, 2025.

Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press