Canada can become 51st USA state and England also – why not?

Donald Trump reportedly wants to accomplish what the War of 1812 did not, writes ‘The Washington Times’.

The president-elect was probably trolling Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at their meeting last week, but he reportedly suggested making Canada the 51st state. Or maybe the 51st and 52nd.

According to a report on Fox News, Mr. Trump made the suggestion when demanding that Mr. Trudeau do more to curtail illegal immigration and drug trafficking across America’s northern border.

Mr. Trump had publicly made the demand under threat of a 25% tariff on Canadian exports to the U.S., prompting Mr. Trudeau to say at Friday’s dinner at Mr. Trump’s estate in Florida that such a levy would destroy Canada’s economy.

Citing “two people at the table who heard the discussion,” Fox reported that Mr. Trump replied that if Canada depends on “ripping off” the U.S. to the annual tune of $100 billion, referring to the U.S. trade deficit with its northern neighbor, Canada should just become the 51st state.

The reply prompted people to “laugh nervously,” Fox reported, and Mr. Trump, known for a jocular approach to diplomacy, “continued, telling Trudeau that prime minister is a better title, though he could still be governor of the 51st state.”

According to Fox’s sources, the discussion “escalated.”

Someone else at the table, whom Fox did not identify, “warned” Mr. Trump that Canada would be a deep-blue state that would probably elect liberals and leftists. Were it a U.S. state, Canada would be the most populous, though only slightly ahead of California.

When that got a bigger laugh, Mr. Trump downplayed such an Electoral College “threat.”

“Trump suggested that Canada could possibly become two states: a conservative and a liberal one,” Fox News wrote.

The network reported that while the exchange drew much laughter, Mr. Trump was serious in expecting change from Canada before he takes office on Jan. 20.

It is time for Britain to become the 51st US state, British journalist Poppy Cockburn has said in an article for the Daily Telegraph. In her opinion, the US is set to experience a renaissance under Donald Trump's presidency, while London will flounder under the yoke of a government that has already driven the country to dependence on the United States.

“‘The Briton... should cheerfully acquiesce in the decree of Destiny, and stand in betimes with the conquering American.” So said William Thomas Stead, the prominent Victorian newspaperman and strident reformer.

Stead looked at Britain’s colonial apotheosis with apprehension, understanding that the growth of new great powers meant “we can never again be the first”. As his countrymen grew fat and complacent on the spoils of imperial decadence, Stead saw clearly that the only avoidance of incipient decline would come by uniting our fortunes with those who had passed us in the great race.

Their motivations were not so alien to our own, fearing the trajectory of Britain without its imperial appendages, the opportunities and dangers of new communications technology, and the future of war. Too different from Europe to form any lasting alliance and too small to seriously consider autarky, “little Britain” would surely be doomed to irrelevance.

This feared future has since come to be. Governing the world is, for us, yesterday’s dream. Our territorial squabbles no longer define the course of history, but rather provide an opportunity for our leaders to provide yet more pointless concessions to foreign states.”

The journalist called world domination a dream of yesterday for Britain, since territorial squabbles no longer determine the course of history, but rather provide an opportunity to make more senseless concessions to foreign countries.

To see Britain dissolve into America would be a tragedy of world-historical proportions. But it is intolerable to contemplate the alternative: a complacent lapse into impotence that is only being fostered policy – wrote Coburn.

She believes that the country will be “lucky” if it is offered to become the 51st state of the USA. The journalist recalled that once her colleague William Thomas Stead proposed linking Britain’s fate with the United States, foreseeing the decline of the metropolis in the event of the loss of the colony.

US President-elect Donald Trump has spent the last month declaring that the US should buy Greenland, take over the Panama Canal, and annex subsidised Mexico and Canada.

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