The New York Times is reporting that the Canadian government is taking President Donald Trump's threats to make it America's "51st state" incredibly seriously based on a phone call Trump had last month with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
During the call, the Times' sources say, Trump "told Mr. Trudeau that he did not believe that the treaty that demarcates the border between the two countries was valid and that he wants to revise the boundary" and he also "mentioned revisiting the sharing of lakes and rivers between the two nations, which is regulated by a number of treaties."
Trump did not offer any specifics or additional information about what "revising" the border would look like but it was apparently enough to convince Trudeau that the president really had ambitions to annex his country as an American territory.
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As if that weren't enough, the Times reports that Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has told Canadian officials that Trump is interested in ripping up decades-old treaties signed between the United States and Canada.
These were not one-off conversations either, as the Times reports that "in subsequent communications between senior Canadian officials and Trump advisers, this list of topics has come up again and again, making it hard for the Canadian government to dismiss them."
The Times notes that earlier reports from other outlets had suggested serious tensions between Trump and Trudeau over Canadian sovereignty.
"The Star, a Canadian newspaper, has reported that Mr. Trump mentioned the 1908 border treaty in the early February call and other details from the conversation," the paper writes. "And the Financial Times has reported that there are discussions in the White House about removing Canada from a crucial intelligence alliance among five nations, attributing those to a senior Trump adviser."
The Times story is, "How Trump’s ‘51st State’ Canada Talk Came to Be Seen as Deadly Serious."