Trump says Canada could be 51st US state, Canadian minister says he was joking

US president-elect Donald Trump was joking when he suggested Canada become the 51st US state during a dinner with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a Canadian minister who attended their recent dinner said Tuesday.

Fox News reported that Trump made the comment in response to Trudeau raising concerns that Trump’s threatened tariffs on Canada would damage Canada’s economy.

Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who attended the Friday dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, said Trump’s comments were in jest.

“The president was telling jokes. The president was teasing us. It was, of course, on that issue, in no way a serious comment,” LeBlanc told reporters in Ottawa.

LeBlanc described it as a three-hour social evening at the president’s residence in Florida on a long weekend of American Thanksgiving. “The conversation was going to be lighthearted,” he said.

He called the relations warm and cordial and said the fact that “the president is able to joke like that for us” indicates good relations.