Ottowa (CNN) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a business gathering on Friday that US President Donald Trump’s threat to annex Canada “is a real thing,” two Canadian business leaders who were at the meeting confirmed to CNN.
Trudeau’s comments, first reported by the Toronto Star, were picked up on an open microphone when Trudeau believed the media had been escorted out.
“Mr. Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing. In my conversations with him on…,” Trudeau said, according to audio from the Canada-US Economic Summit in Toronto shared by CBC News, before the microphone cut out.
Trudeau made the comments after delivering an opening address at the summit, and after journalists had left the room, CBC reported.
In an interview with CNNbefore Trump’s inauguration, Trudeau said that Trump’s comments about turning Canada into the United States’ 51st state are just a …