Photo: The Canadian Press

President Donald Trump speaks at a dinner with Senate Republicans at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Ben Curtis

U.S. President Donald Trump once again says that he wants to see Canada become a state due to the unsubstantiated claim that the States is "paying $200 billion a year" to its northern neighbour.

Trump says that Canada would be "much better off" as a State, and says he'd be fine with "subsidizing" Canada if it was a State, an apparent reference to the U.S. trade deficit with Canada.

Statistics Canada says Canada's overall trade surplus with the U.S. was $94.4 billion in 2023, primarily due to oil exports.

Trump made the statement in response to a question from Fox News anchor Bret Baier in an interview televised Sunday.

Baier asked Trump about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's comments Friday, where Trudeau told a group on business leaders that Trump is not joking about making Canada a state.

Trump initially threatened to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian products due to border security issues around fentanyl and illegal immigration, but the president's comments continue to focus on trade with Canada and more recently a perceived lack of U.S. banks in Canada.

In the interview, which was pre-taped this weekend in Florida, Trump also said that he has not seen enough action from Canada and Mexico to stave off the tariffs he has threatened to impose on the country's two largest trading partners.

“No, it’s not good enough,” he said. “Something has to happen. It’s not sustainable. And I’m changing it.”

Trump last week agreed to a 30-day pause on his plan to slap Mexico and Canada with a 25% tariff on all imports except for Canadian oil, natural gas and electricity, which would be taxed at 10%, after the countries took steps to appease his concerns about border security and drug trafficking.

While traveling Sunday on Air Force One to the championship game in New Orleans, Trump said that he would on Monday announce a 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the U.S., including from Canada and Mexico and a plan for reciprocal tariffs later in the week.

“Very simply it’s if they charge us, we charge them,” he said.

Trump’s participation in the interview marked a return to tradition. Presidents have typically granted a sit-down to the network broadcasting the Super Bowl game, the most-watched television event of the year. But both Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, were inconsistent in their participation.

Biden declined to participate last year and in 2023, when efforts by his team to have Biden speak with a Fox Corp. streaming service instead of the main network failed. During his first term, Trump participated in three out of four years.

Trump on Sunday will also become the first sitting president to attend the Super Bowl in person — something he told Baier he was surprised to learn.

“I thought it would be a good thing for the country to have the president at the game,” he said.

During his flight to New Orleans, Trump signed a proclamation declaring Feb. 9 “the first ever Gulf of America Day" as Air Force One flew over the body of water that he renamed by proclamation from the Gulf of Mexico.

Trump in the interview, also defended the work of billionaire Elon Musk, whose so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has been drawing deep concern from Democrats as he moves to shut down whole government agencies and fire large swaths of the federal workforce in the name of rooting out waste and inefficiency.

Musk, Trump said, has “been terrific," and will target the Department of Education and the military next.

“We’re going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse,” Trump predicted. “I campaigned on this."

He was also asked about his dancing, which has become a popular meme on social media.

“I don't know what it is. I try and walk off sometimes without dancing and I can’t. I have to dance because it’s just that - something special about it," Trump responded.