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.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, or at least many of the people up here think it would,” she says. In an interview on Global’s The West Block, airing Sunday, Nungesser shared a similar sentiment.
“We’ve just been great friends for so long in everything that Canadians have done, like fighting forest fires in the United States. What our president said about the 51st state makes me feel ashamed and breaks my heart,” he stated. “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.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 backed up his suggestion by claiming that many Canadians want their country to become a state in the United States.
Trump should apologize to Canada for 51st state remarks, Louisiana official says
