US President Donald Trump shared a light moment with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney during a bilateral meeting at the White House on Tuesday, joking that Canada could become the '51st US state'. Carney laughed at the remark, as Trump added that although the two countries have had their differences, they can always resolve them.
Carney made his second visit to the Oval Office ahead of next year's review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and as one of the world's most durable and amicable alliances has been fractured by Trump's trade war and annexation threats.
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Trump's joke about a US-Canada merger came as Canadian PM Carney lauded Trump, calling him a "transformative President" and claiming he had mediated the recent India-Pakistan four-day conflict.
While Carney outlined the agenda, saying, "This is, in many respects, the most important…," Trump interjected, joking, "The merger of Canada and the United States!" However, he quicky clarified, "I'm only kidding."
Carney laughed and quipped, "That wasn't where I was going."
When the two leaders had earlier met in May, Carney had bluntly told Trump that Canada would never be for sale, in response to Trump’s repeated threats to purchase or annex Canada.
US-Canada ties and Gaza negotiations
Trump said that he was open to extending the free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada through a renegotiation or seeking "different deals". "We could renegotiate it, and that would be good, or we can just do different deals," he said. "We're allowed to do different deals if we want. We might make deals that are better for the individual countries."
"We want Canada to do great," Trump said. "But you know, there's a point at which we also want the same business."
Asked why the US and Canada had failed to reach a deal on trade, Trump said it's a complicated situation.
"We've had some natural conflict, but we'll probably work that out. We've had a strong relationship, and your hosting of the various countries that showed up was a beautiful job you did, and I appreciate it very much. We're going to be talking about trade. We're going to be talking about different things. We'll certainly be talking about Gaza," he added
He further stated that he would discuss Gaza with Carney. "We're in serious negotiations to a conflict- you could say 3,000 years, but it's been raging for a long time, and there's a possibility we could have peace in the Middle East. Something beyond the Gaza situation. We want to release the hostages," he said.
Trump further said that the whole world approved of his plan. "So our team is over there now. Another team just left, and every country in the world has supported the plan. I don't think there's anybody that hasn't approved that I've seen," Trump said, hinting at potential deals between the US and Canada.
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