Ontario Premier Doug Ford says Donald Trump’s threat to make Canada the 51st U.S. state is a “compliment,” but it’ll never happen.
Ford shared his new take when speaking to reporters at Queen’s Park Tuesday, saying after his high-stakes meeting in Washington last week, the Americans aren’t “coming into our country to take over.”
“I kind of flipped this around: what a compliment. We’ll never be a 51st state. Canada is not for sale, but isn’t it nice someone thinks we have the greatest country in the world, and they want access,” Ford said.
“My simple answer to that is if you want access, let’s build an Am-Can Fortress as I’ve been saying. Let’s supply more critical minerals, let’s supply more energy that you need. We are not the enemy, they know that. Their foe is China. That’s their enemy and ours to a certain degree.”
Ford’s remarks appear to be a change in tone for the premier, who has become a prominent voice and representative for the premiers in the fight against the tariffs.
Fortress Am-Can, as Ford mentioned, is a plan he has been touting for months.
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The strategy revolves around increasing the sale of Ontario’s critical minerals to the United States, working together on land and water security and increasing the electricity produced in Ontario and used south of the border.
However, Ford’s pitches haven’t caught Trump’s attention until recently, when he followed through on a pre-election threat by introducing a 25 per cent surcharge on electricity exports to three U.S. states.
That move enraged the White House and led to what Ford would call an “olive branch” being extended by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Ford suspended that measure in the lead up to a meeting last Thursday in Washington. It remains on pause after that meeting, which Ford called the “the best meeting I’ve ever had” in Washington.
The premier said he had no regrets on Tuesday.
“We left there knowing what the U.S. wants. If I didn’t do what I did, that meeting would have never happened. We’d be going back and forth, tit for tat,” Ford said.
“But there’s a big difference when you’re looking at someone, their whole trade team across the table, looking at them in eye, you have a much better conversation with them than over the phone, which we’ve had a few times so far.”
Ford shed new details on that meeting, saying the U.S. is going forward with putting “reciprocal” tariffs on all foreign imports starting April 2, with the intent of matching tariffs and trade measures on U.S. exports.
He said Ontario is focusing on ensuring “we’re first in line for exemptions,” adding the Trump administration appears to be focused on sectors like lumber, steel, aluminum and technology.
“We look forward to continuing these talks. We aren’t looking forward to April 2, but we will retaliate — dollar for dollar, tariff for tariff … we can’t roll over,” he said.
“We need to have a free and fair-trade deal with our closest allies, and they still are our closest allies. We look forward to working through this, and we want to be in the Tier 1 level, per se, of countries that they turn to when they realize can’t produce the aluminum, the high-grade nickel, other critical minerals and autos and so on so forth.”
Ford added he’s noticed Lutnick, who had been bashing Ontario and Canada on U.S. news channels after the hydro fallout, has “toned it down,” and he has as well.
As for Trump, he’s another man altogether, Ford said.
“He says whatever is on his mind and that can change from day to day. … Let’s get back to normal, but one thing the Americans will wake up to really quick: this is going to hurt American jobs,” he said.
“A tariff on Canada is a tax on the American people, and I’ll continue repeating it because I know that’s the case and I believe in it.”
— With files from Global News’ Isaac Callan
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
Canada as 51st state a ‘compliment,’ Ford says but country is ‘not for sale’
