{"id":179393,"date":"2026-08-23T04:30:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T04:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/179393\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T04:30:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T04:30:41","slug":"trumps-remarks-on-canada-becoming-the-51st-state-raise-a-lot-of-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/179393\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s remarks on Canada becoming the 51st state raise a lot of questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a> has repeatedly said Canada should be the 51st U.S. state<\/a> as he proposes to erase the 5,525-mile-long border that separates the two countries. The very notion is ludicrous to Canadians and the hurdles to transforming it into a state are sky high. <\/p>\n

But in Trump\u2019s thinking, the traditional Lower 48 states would become the contiguous 50 as the Canadian territory between the U.S. mainland and Alaska disappears, leaving Hawaii as the only non-continental state. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf people wanted to play the game right, it would be 100% certain that they\u2019d become a state,\u201d Trump said recently. <\/p>\n

Canada at first reacted as though Trump must be joking<\/a>, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau<\/a> said flatly his country would never be the 51st state. Trudeau more recently suggested behind closed doors<\/a> that Trump\u2019s sustained annexation calls may not be just light talk and appear to be \u201ca real thing.\u201d <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what it would take to transform Canada from a nation to a state:<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the process for add<\/p>\n

ing a state?<\/p>\n

Congress has to approve accepting a new state.<\/p>\n

It takes only a House majority, but Senate filibuster rules require a minimum of 60 votes in the 100-member chamber to bring a bill to the floor \u2014 an insurmountable threshold<\/a> for all kinds of key legislation. <\/p>\n

The Constitution\u2019s Admissions Clause, Article IV, Section 3, states: \u201cNew States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Any measure approving a new state that clears Congress would also have to be signed into law by the president. In the case of Canada, Trump has made it clear he would be eager to do so.<\/p>\n

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump ally, joked on X when all 50 states certified Trump\u2019s Electoral College victory<\/a> last month, \u201cThey skipped Canada. We\u2019ll fix that next time!\u201d <\/p>\n

No major legislation is advancing that would extend an invitation to statehood to America\u2019s northern neighbor. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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You can subscribe below and we will email it you 3 times per week.\n<\/p>\n

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Doesn\u2019t Canada have a say?<\/p>\n

To say that most Canadian leaders aren\u2019t interested in becoming a state would be an understatement. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, head of Canada\u2019s most populous province, has spun out a counteroffer for Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow about, if we buy Alaska, and we\u2019ll throw in Minnesota and Minneapolis at the same time,\u201d he said, adding of Trump\u2019s suggestion: \u201cIt\u2019s not realistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

There have been multiple past pathways to statehood \u2014 from the absorption of the 13 colonies under the Articles of Confederation, to Congress formally agreeing to Texas\u2019 request to be annexed as the 28th state.<\/p>\n

Most states were added after Congress accepted a petition from some territorial legislative body, which could include legislatures that Congress itself suggested forming as part of the process. <\/p>\n

Canada would probably have to have a referendum to gauge voters\u2019 interests in joining the U.S. before more detailed aspects of the process could begin \u2014 and that\u2019s almost certainly a non-starter. <\/p>\n

While not addressing Canada as the 51st state directly, polling last year from Gallup and the Pew Research Center shows that Americans overwhelmingly have a positive view of Canada \u2014 and that while Canadians view the U.S. more positively than negatively, their view may be a little more muted.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s threats of tariffs have left Canadians feeling betrayed, and sports fans in Canada have begun voicing their displeasure by booing the U.S. national anthem<\/a> at NBA and NHL games.<\/p>\n

How would adding Canada affect U.S. elections? <\/p>\n

Profoundly \u2014 and that\u2019s without speculating about whether a majority of Canadians might back Democrats or Republicans for president and in Congress. <\/p>\n

If Canada were to join the U.S. \u2014 again, a highly unlikely prospect \u2014 its population of 41.6 million would make it the largest state, outpacing California\u2019s 39.4 million residents. Canada would get two senators but also 55 House seats based on the average congressional district population following the 2020 U.S. census, which was 761,169 individuals. <\/p>\n

That would make Canada the presidential race\u2019s richest prize, with 57 Electoral College delegates \u2014 exceeding California\u2019s 54. <\/p>\n

The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, meanwhile, caps the number of House seats at 435, meaning that other state delegations would have to shrink to make room for the new Canadian members of the House \u2014 and, by extension, its delegates to the Electoral College.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, make-or-break swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin would not look so important if there were tens of millions of Canadians waiting to be wooed with a presidential election on the line. <\/p>\n

What about other potential new states? <\/p>\n

Before Trump took office for his second term, debate around adding State No. 51 traditionally centered around Puerto Rico<\/a> and Washington, D.C.<\/a><\/p>\n

Puerto Rico is a U.S. commonwealth, and its voters have approved statehood in nonbinding referendums<\/a>. Proposals to allow it become a state have repeatedly been introduced in Congress but not approved. <\/p>\n

Washington, D.C., residents have voted in support of statehood and approved a state constitution and proposed boundaries. A bill admitting into the union<\/a> the city as Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, passed the Democratic-controlled House as recently as 2021 but not the Senate. <\/p>\n

Republicans now control both chambers, meaning they\u2019ll likely oppose adding states that could be majority Democratic like Puerto Rico or D.C. <\/p>\n

The nation\u2019s capital gets three Electoral College votes for president under the Constitution\u2019s 23rd Amendment, though it lacks voting representation in Congress. That\u2019s why the Electoral College has 538 total delegates: 435 House members, 100 senators and three for D.C. <\/p>\n

When was the last time the United States added a state?<\/p>\n

Hawaii became the 50th state in 1959, nearly 18 years after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. <\/p>\n

The island chain about 2,400 miles (3,900 kilometers) from the mainland United States was annexed as a U.S. territory by Congress in 1898. Many bills offering Hawaii statehood were subsequently introduced, but they stalled for decades amid racial discrimination and partisan disagreement. <\/p>\n

By the early 1950s, Hawaii leaned Republican, and Democrats opposed its admission to the union without including Alaska, which was seen as more favorable to their party. <\/p>\n

Alaska, separated from the mainland U.S. by about 500 miles (800 kilometers) of Canadian territory, was eventually admitted as State No. 49 in January 1959. That opened the door for Congress to approve Hawaii\u2019s statehood that March, and island voters chose to join the union on Aug. 21, 1959.<\/p>\n

It turned out that Alaska has backed Republicans in every presidential election except 1964, while Hawaii has voted Democratic every presidential cycle but 1972 and 1984.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump has repeatedly said Canada should be the 51st U.S. state as he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[56746,17,591,8083,56748,8118,162,4079,592,52853,56747,127,1802,42415,113,14568,3942,30,56745,594,14569,5996,218],"class_list":["post-179393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ak-state-wire","tag-canada","tag-canada-government","tag-congress","tag-constitutions","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-donald-trump","tag-doug-ford","tag-general-news","tag-hawaii","tag-hi-state-wire","tag-justin-trudeau","tag-legislation","tag-lindsey-graham","tag-politics","tag-referendums","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-congress","tag-united-states-government","tag-voting","tag-washington-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}