Trump Says Canada Wants The Benefits Of Statehood Without Being A State, Accidentally Describing Every State
The President of the United States said Sunday that Canada "wants the benefits" of being an American state "without being one," a formulation that landed strangely in Ottawa, where officials spent the afternoon trying to identify the benefits.
A senior trade official reached at home listed what she could find: access to a market that has applied tariffs to Canadian steel, aluminum, softwood and, briefly, maple syrup packaging; a shared border staffed by people who ask why you are visiting Buffalo; and the right to watch the Super Bowl ads.
"We do want that last one," she conceded.
The deeper problem with the President's theory is that it describes the American federal arrangement itself. Wyoming wants the benefits. Mississippi wants the benefits. Texas has built an entire political identity on wanting the benefits while filing paperwork suggesting it does not. If wanting the benefits without the membership disqualifies you, roughly thirty states are on notice.
Canada's actual position, stated with the enthusiasm of a man renewing a gym membership he does not use, is that it would like the 1994 agreement, the 2018 agreement, or honestly any agreement, applied as written for four consecutive business days.
A Conservative MP has separately demanded the full details of the failed trade deal be released, which assumes there are details. Sources describe the file as a slide deck with one slide, and on that slide, the word "progress" in a font nobody chose.
The Prime Minister's Office declined comment, noting only that the 51st state already exists. It is called Florida, and Canadians visit it every February without asking anyone's permission.