{"id":172557,"date":"2025-09-27T08:20:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T08:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/172557\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T08:20:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T08:20:19","slug":"trump-should-apologize-to-canada-for-51st-state-remarks-louisiana-official-says-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/172557\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump should apologize to Canada for 51st state remarks, Louisiana official says – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

Louisiana\u2019s lieutenant-governor is urging U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> to offer an apology to Canada following his remarks earlier this year, in which he suggested that the country should become the \u201c51st state<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lt.-Gov. Billy Nungesser<\/a> shared that during a week-long tourism promotion trip to Canada for New Orleans and Louisiana, he faced significant pushback linked to the comments made by Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t realize what the impact has been until I got here, but the pushback from the president\u2019s comments about the 51st state, the tariffs, have really left a bad taste in Canadians\u2019 mouths,\u201d Nungesser said during an interview with Fox 8 Live<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLouisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser (L) at a news conference at the Saenger Theater in New Orleans on June 4, 2024.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAP Photo\/Kevin McGill\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Canadian tourists are valuable because they often extend trips in New Orleans to explore other parts of Louisiana, Nungesser said. Canada is Louisiana\u2019s fifth-largest export market<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt would be really nice if the president could issue an apology about the 51st state,\u201d he added. \u201cI think that would go a long way \u2014 at least many of the people up here believe it would.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview on Global\u2019s The West Block<\/a>, airing Sunday, Nungesser shared a similar sentiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all that Canadians have done, [like] fight forest fires in America, we\u2019ve just been great friends for so long. It breaks my heart and embarrasses me what our president said about the 51st state,\u201d he said. \u201cI just wanted to let them know not everyone in America feels that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Trump first suggested that Canada become the 51st state in early December 2024 after former prime minister Justin Trudeau<\/a> flew to Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago property<\/a> and dined with the then-president-elect.<\/p>\n

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After their dinner,\u00a0Fox News, citing anonymous sources<\/a>, reported that Trump suggested to Trudeau that if the tariffs would kill the Canadian economy, then maybe the country should become the 51st state.<\/p>\n

Then-public safety minister Dominic LeBlanc, who also attended the dinner, brushed off Trump\u2019s suggestion, saying it was \u201cin no way a serious comment.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump doubled down on his suggestion, claiming that many Canadians want to see their country become a U.S. state.<\/p>\n

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In a post to his social media platform Truth Social in January, Trump wrote, \u201cmany people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States can no longer suffer the massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat. Justin Trudeau knew this, and resigned,\u201d he continued, adding that if Canada \u201cmerged\u201d with the U.S., \u201cthere would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In response, Trudeau said talk of Canada becoming the 51st state was a distraction from more pressing threats of U.S. tariffs on Canada and their likely impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I know that, as a successful negotiator, [Trump] likes to keep people a little off-balance. The 51st state, that\u2019s not going to happen. It\u2019s just a non-starter. Canadians are incredibly proud of being Canadian,\u201d Trudeau said during an appearance<\/a> on\u00a0Inside with Jen Psaki.\t<\/p>\n

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In April, Trump once again called on Canadians<\/a> to consider becoming the 51st state on the morning of the federal election.<\/p>\n

He posted on Truth Social that Canadians should elect a leader who would lower taxes, increase military might and eradicate tariffs, though he didn\u2019t mention any specific candidate.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica can no longer subsidize Canada with the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a State,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

In May, during a White House meeting<\/a> on the future of the Canada-U.S. relationship, Prime Minister Mark Carney<\/a> told Trump that Canada is \u201cnever for sale.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a bigger discussion,\u201d Carney told reporters in the Oval Office. \u201cThere are much bigger forces involved, and this will take some time and some discussions. And that\u2019s why we\u2019re here, to have those discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat did Carney and Trump talk about in their first sit-down?\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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During their conversation, Trump told reporters he is a \u201creal estate developer at heart\u201d and referred to the border between Canada and the U.S. as \u201cartificial.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get rid of that artificially drawn line \u2014 somebody drew that line many years ago with like a ruler, just a straight line right across the top of the country \u2014 when you look at that beautiful formation, when it\u2019s together \u2026 I say, that\u2019s the way it was meant to be,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

Carney responded: \u201cAs you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prime minister told reporters afterward that he asked Trump during their meeting to stop referring to Canada as the \u201c51st state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then, the references have stopped.<\/p>\n

Watch the full interview with Nungesser on The West Block<\/a> on Sunday, Sept. 28 at 11 a.m. ET.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

\u2014 With files from Global News\u2019 Sean Boynton and The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Louisiana\u2019s lieutenant-governor is urging U.S. President Donald Trump to offer an apology to Canada following his remarks earlier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[88473,88474,49,48,1376,44,714,519],"class_list":["post-172557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-51st-state","tag-billy-nungesser","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-donald-trump","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-trending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}