PM Trudeau Says Trump's Discussion On Canada's Annexation Is A Transfer Of Attention

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau. (Wikimedia Commons/European Parliament)

JAKARTA - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said United States President-elect Donald Trump's talks on the possibility of annexing Canada are tactics designed to distract people from the impact of the tariffs he proposed.

Trump, who said he would impose a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian imports unless Ottawa stepped up border security, said on Tuesday he was considering economic powers to acquire Canada.

"I think what happened in this case was President Trump, who is a very skilled negotiator, getting people a bit distracted by the conversation," PM Trudeau told CNN when asked about Trump's statement.

"Oil and gas and electricity and steel and aluminum and wood and concrete and everything American consumers from Canada (will) suddenly become much more expensive if he continues this tariff," he explained.

PM Trudeau, who said this week there was no "an opportunity as big as a snowball in hell" that Canada would become part of the United States, reiterated to CNN that Ottawa would impose countermeasures if Trump realized this threat.

Trudeau recalled, during a bilateral trade dispute in 2018, Canada charged Heinz's tomato sauce, Remi cards and Harley Davidson motorcycles - "on goods that would harm American workers."

"But we don't want to do that because it will raise prices for Canadians and harm our closest trading partner," he said.