Louisiana’s lieutenant-governor is urging U.S. President Donald Trump to offer an apology to Canada following his remarks earlier this year, in which he suggested that the country should become the “51st state.”
Lt.-Gov. Billy Nungesser shared that during a week-long tourism promotion trip to Canada for New Orleans and Louisiana, he faced significant pushback linked to the comments made by Trump.
“I didn’t realize what the impact has been until I got here, but the pushback from the president’s comments about the 51st state, the tariffs, have really left a bad taste in Canadians’ mouths,” Nungesser said during an interview with Fox 8 Live.
Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser (L) at a news conference at the Saenger Theater in New Orleans on June 4, 2024.
AP Photo/Kevin McGill
Canadian tourists are valuable because they often extend trips in New Orleans to explore other parts of Louisiana, Nungesser said. Canada is Louisiana’s fifth-largest export market.
“It would be really nice if the president could issue an apology about the 51st state,” he added. “I think that would go a long way — at least many of the people up here believe it would.”
In an interview on Global’s The West Block, airing Sunday, Nungesser shared a similar sentiment.
“In all that Canadians have done, [like] fight forest fires in America, we’ve just been great friends for so long. It breaks my heart and embarrasses me what our president said about the 51st state,” he said. “I just wanted to let them know not everyone in America feels that way.”
Trump first suggested that Canada become the 51st state in early December 2024 after former prime minister Justin Trudeau flew to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property and dined with the then-president-elect.
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After their dinner, Fox News, citing anonymous sources, reported that Trump suggested to Trudeau that if the tariffs would kill the Canadian economy, then maybe the country should become the 51st state.
Then-public safety minister Dominic LeBlanc, who also attended the dinner, brushed off Trump’s suggestion, saying it was “in no way a serious comment.”
Trump doubled down on his suggestion, claiming that many Canadians want to see their country become a U.S. state.
In a post to his social media platform Truth Social in January, Trump wrote, “many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State.”
“The United States can no longer suffer the massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat. Justin Trudeau knew this, and resigned,” he continued, adding that if Canada “merged” with the U.S., “there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them.”
In response, Trudeau said talk of Canada becoming the 51st state was a distraction from more pressing threats of U.S. tariffs on Canada and their likely impact.
In April, Trump once again called on Canadians to consider becoming the 51st state on the morning of the federal election.
He posted on Truth Social that Canadians should elect a leader who would lower taxes, increase military might and eradicate tariffs, though he didn’t mention any specific candidate.
“America can no longer subsidize Canada with the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a State,” he wrote.
In May, during a White House meeting on the future of the Canada-U.S. relationship, Prime Minister Mark Carney told Trump that Canada is “never for sale.”
“This is a bigger discussion,” Carney told reporters in the Oval Office. “There are much bigger forces involved, and this will take some time and some discussions. And that’s why we’re here, to have those discussions.”
During their conversation, Trump told reporters he is a “real estate developer at heart” and referred to the border between Canada and the U.S. as “artificial.”
“When you get rid of that artificially drawn line — somebody drew that line many years ago with like a ruler, just a straight line right across the top of the country — when you look at that beautiful formation, when it’s together … I say, that’s the way it was meant to be,” Trump said.
Carney responded: “As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale.”
The prime minister told reporters afterward that he asked Trump during their meeting to stop referring to Canada as the “51st state.”
Since then, the references have stopped.
Watch the full interview with Nungesser on The West Block on Sunday, Sept. 28 at 11 a.m. ET.
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— With files from Global News’ Sean Boynton and The Canadian Press
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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