Donald Trump says America could annex Canada by economic force

President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he would use economic, not military, force to acquire Canada.

“Because Canada and the United States would really be something. If you get rid of that artificially drawn line, if you look at what it looks like, that would be much better for national security as well,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

He said America spends “hundreds of billions” of dollars a year to protect and care for Canada.

“We don’t need their cars; you know they make 20% of our cars. We don’t need it; I prefer to make them in Detroit. We don’t need cars. We don’t need their wood,” he said.

“We need to lift restrictions because stupid people are imposing restrictions – but I can do it with an executive order,” he said. “We don’t need anything they have.”

He added: “Why are we supporting a country (with) over $200 billion a year; our military is at their disposal, all these other things. They should constitute a state,” he said. “That’s what I told (Canadian Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau when he came down.”

Mr. Trump kept mentioning that Canada would be the 51st state, even calling Mr. Trudeau “governor.”

Canadian officials have rejected the comments, saying their country will never be part of the United States.