'What president ever talks like that?' Biden slams Trump talk of annexing allies like Canada
Joe Biden expressed dismay in his first post-presidential interview over his successor Donald Trump's statements about acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal, and of Canada becoming the 51st U.S. state.
The former U.S. president told BBC Radio 4's Today program in remarks that aired Wednesday that those Trump threats, along with his administration's diplomatic efforts to help end the Russia-Ukraine war, have bred distrust of the United States.
"What president ever talks like that?" the longtime Democrat said. "That's not who we are. We're about freedom, democracy, opportunity — not about confiscation."
Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election. Concerns about Biden's ability to handle another four years in office became manifest after a disastrous debate performance in June 2024. Weeks later, Biden announced he would bow out of the race, with his vice-president Kamala Harris subsequently unable to defeat Trump.
Biden has returned to the public eye after leaving the White House in January, making his first speech last month in Chicago, where he lamented a Trump administration that had already "done so much damage and so much destruction."
In 2023, Biden made the first U.S. presidential visit to Ottawa in seven years.
"The United States chooses to link our future with Canada, because we know that we'll find no better partner — and I mean this from the bottom of my heart — no more reliable ally, no more steady friend," he said at the time.
Trump — whose only visit to Canada in his first term as president was a G7 summit in Quebec noted for its friction — has derided former prime minister Justin Trudeau, and occasionally, without referring to her by name, longtime cabinet member Chrystia Freeland. Trump slammed both again on Tuesday, when newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney paid his first visit to the White House.
Freeland was integral in hammering out with American and Mexican counterparts an update to the North American Free Trade Agreement of decades earlier.
Like Trudeau and then-president Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico, Trump officially signed off on that pact in 2018, and more than a year later, the U.S. president was still characterizing it as "the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law."
As his political comeback picked up steam, and especially since his November re-election, Trump has assailed the agreement and complained that Canada is "ripping us off," suggesting that the U.S. doesn't need Canadian goods or resources.
Trump has publicly extolled the economic benefits he sees of Canada joining the U.S., and privately discussed it with both Trudeau and, in their first phone conversation as leaders, Carney.
Trump has accused Canada of freeloading off the significant military protection and equipment the U.S. provides, though the president has also offered up a number of dubious statistics regarding trade deficits between the countries.
He also assailed the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. via Canada, although all available numbers indicate the flow of fentanyl, as well as weapons, is greater in the opposite direction.
Trump has threatened to apply various tariffs on Canadian goods and services, which has sparked nationalist sentiment north of the U.S. border and boycotts of some American products.
Periodic surveys dating back at least 60 years have evinced low levels of interest among Canadians in becoming part of the U.S.
When asked Tuesday if he would respect the will of Canadians, Trump seemed to suggest that it could change "over a period of time." Carney quickly responded that "Canadians' view on this is not going to change."
At another point, Trump said "never say never," over the prospect of Canada becoming a state.
The Trump administration has not explained why Canada would be a 51st state, given that surveys have consistently shown that a majority of Puerto Ricans — who are American citizens — would favour statehood over the current status as a U.S. territory. Even greater numbers of District of Columbia residents, surveys have consistently shown, would like D.C. to become a state.
Slams Trump 'appeasement' of RussiaElsewhere in the interview, Biden said the Trump administration's pressure on Ukraine to give up territory to Russia amounts to " modern-day appeasement."
Trump has said that Crimea, a strategic peninsula along the Black Sea in southern Ukraine that was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, "will stay with Russia."
Early in his presidency, Trump ordered a pause in American aid to Ukraine — then resumed it. Last week, the two countries signed an agreement granting American access in an investment fund to Ukraine's vast mineral resources, though any payoff would be far off the horizon, as the Eastern European country, in addition to being under attack, has no commercially operational rare earth mines at present.
Trump and his Vice-President J.D. Vance at times publicly berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over a perceived lack of gratitude in an Oval Office in February, a display Biden described as "beneath America."
The heated confrontation followed comments by both Vance and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth in Europe that had leaders there questioning Washington's commitment to the defence of the continent.
"I don't understand how they fail to understand that there's strength in alliances," Biden said of the Trump administration.
In arguably his administration's greatest foreign policy accomplishment, Biden was able to lead a multilateral response of European nations and Canada to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It has been estimated the Biden administration provided Ukraine about $500 billion US in military aid, along with billions in humanitarian assistance.
Biden did receive some criticism from members of Congress from both political parties for delays in providing Ukraine with certain weapons systems, and it was reported that the administration balked at allowing Ukraine to strike targets within Russia with American missiles, before moving off that stance late last year.
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