Donald Trump's recent obsession with annexing Canada is "a real thing", Justin Trudeau has told business leaders, warning that the US president wants access to his northern neighbour's vast supply of critical minerals.
The outgoing prime minister was in Toronto for a hastily called summit of business and labour leaders, seeking to coordinate a response to Trump's looming threat of a 25% tariff on all Canadian imports.
Earlier this week, Trump backed away from tariffs that would have devastated Canada's economy, granting one of his country's largest trading partners a 30-day reprieve for further negotiations.
However he has continued to mock Canadian sovereignty, repeating his description of the country as the "51st state" on social media and repeatedly calling Trudeau "governor" instead of prime minister.
Friday's summit touched on issues of curbing the movement of fentanyl, security at the border, and the problem of interprovincial trade. However, in a later speech to an audience, Trudeau indicated that the president's threats of annexation – often seen as a negotiating ploy – were serious, and should be taken as such.
"I would suggest that the Trump administration is not only aware of how much critical minerals we have but may be even more so why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state," he reportedly told them.
"They are very aware of our resources, of what we have and they very much want to be able to benefit from those," he said. "But Mr Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country."
It has critical minerals considered key to the green energy transition: lithium, graphite, nickel, copper and cobalt, and has strived to place itself as a reliable and secure supplier of these commodities to other allied nations.
Trump's threats have turned the long-established relationship between the two nations upside down and transformed federal politics dramatically, ushering in a new wave of patriotism. As an election is due, all parties are scrambling to outdo one another in demonstrating their willingness to defend the sovereignty of the country.
In the very province where sovereigntists have been rising in the polls, the demand for a referendum on Quebec's secession has declined.
According to an Angus Reid poll, there was a 13-point increase between December and February in people in Quebec who said they were "very proud" or "proud" to be Canadian: 45% to 58%.
Federal cabinet ministers sought to reassure the attenders on Friday.
"Our American friends understand that they need Canada for their economic security, they need Canada for their energy security and they need Canada for their national security," the industry minister, François-Philippe Champagne, told AFP.
The trade minister, Anita Anand, said there would be "no messing" with the border.
"Canada is free. Canada is sovereign," the employment minister, Steven MacKinnon, told reporters. "Canada will choose its own destiny, thank you very much."
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