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Influential leader of Canada's Ontario province seeks Trump, Musk meeting: US 'needs us like we need them'
OTTAWA-After President-elect Trump mused about using “economic force” to acquire Canada as the 51st state during his Mar-a-Lago news conference on Tuesday, outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded on social media that “there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.”
However, as Trudeau announced on Monday his plan to resign as prime minister once the Liberal Party that he leads chooses his successor, the biggest pushback to Trump’s pitch to annex Canada – and his planned 25% tariffs on exports from the country – has come from the premier of Canada’s most populous province, Ontario.
Doug Ford, a former businessman and conservative like Trump who has served as Ontario’s 26th premier since 2018, told Fox News Digital in an interview that the president-elect’s targeting Canada is both “crazy” and “ridiculous.”
He said the bilateral focus should be on “strengthening” what the Canadian government calls a nearly trillion-dollar two-way trade relationship to “make the U.S. and Canada the richest and most prosperous jurisdiction in the world.”
WHO IS PIERRE POILIEVRE? CANADA’S CONSERVATIVE LEADER SEEKING TO BECOME NEXT PRIME MINISTER AFTER TRUDEAU EXIT
Doug Ford, Ontario’s premier, speaks to members of the media as he arrives for a meeting in Ottawa, Canada, on Feb. 7, 2023. (James Park/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
At a Toronto news conference on Monday following Trudeau’s resignation announcement, Ford chided Trump with a “counteroffer” to his Canada-as-a-51st state idea.
“How about if we buy Alaska and throw in Minnesota?” the premier said at Queen’s Park, Ontario’s legislature.
Ford jokingly told Fox News Digital that he heard from Canadians after making those remarks that he should have chosen “somewhere warmer, like Florida or California.”
“California never votes for him anyway,” he added.
At his Monday news conference, Ontario’s premier said that “under my watch,” annexing Canada “will never, ever happen.”
Ford is also taking Trump’s tariff threat seriously.
President-elect Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talk prior to a NATO meeting in Watford, Hertfordshire, England, Dec. 4, 2019. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File)
Last month, his Progressive Conservative government launched a multimillion-dollar U.S. ad campaign on television and streaming apps touting Ontario as an “ally” to generate “more workers, more trade, more prosperity, more security.”
“You can rely on Ontario for energy to power your growing economy, and for the critical minerals crucial to new technologies,” says the 60-second ad.
Ford said the 25% tariff against Canada, which Trump plans to implement on his first day in office on Jan. 20, would hurt millions of American and Canadian workers.
“Nine million Americans produce products for Ontario alone every single day,” he said. “The problem is China shipping goods into Mexico and Mexico slapping a made-in-Mexico sticker.”
JUSTIN TRUDEAU’S RESIGNATION MET WITH GLEEFUL REACTION FROM CONSERVATIVES ONLINE: ‘THE WINNING CONTINUES!’
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are heading the Department of Government Efficiency. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Ontario is ready to take retaliatory measures “that will really send a message to the U.S.” in response to the imposition of U.S. tariffs, said Ford, who was involved in the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement during the first Trump administration, but would now like Canada to have separate deals with the U.S. and Mexico.
“It’s unfortunate because retaliation is not good for either country,” he offered, noting that Ontario is the top exporter to 17 states and the second largest to 11 others.
“The last thing I want to do is hurt those people,” said Ford. “I want to create more jobs in the U.S., more jobs in Canada. And we can do that by making sure that we toughen up and put tariffs on places like China.”
By way of example, he said that “someone in Texas who purchased a GM pickup truck made in Oshawa, [Ontario] might have paid between $50,000 and $60,000,” and with a tariff, “would be paying 70 some-odd thousand.”
“It just doesn’t make sense whatsoever,” Ford said.
Tractor trailers drive across the Ambassador Bridge border crossing from Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit, Michigan, on Feb. 14, 2022. (Geoff Robins/AFP via Getty Images)
He would like to have a face-to-face meeting with Trump and said he has reached out to U.S. senators and governors to make that happen. A sit-down with SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk – whom Trump appointed to co-lead, with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, the proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” – is also on Ford’s wish-list.
Ford said Trump “doesn’t realize” that Ontario is the U.S.’s third-largest trading partner, amounting to about US$344 billion in 2023, “split equally down the center.”
Ontario’s premier said he wants to ship more electricity and critical minerals to the U.S., which “needs us like we need them.”
TRUMP REACTS TO TRUDEAU RESIGNATION: ‘MANY PEOPLE IN CANADA LOVE BEING THE 51ST STATE’
In 2012, the premier and his late brother, Rob, who was mayor of Toronto at the time, met Trump, along with his daughter, Ivanka, when they were in the city to open the former Trump International Hotel and Tower, now unaffiliated with The Trump Organization and known as The St. Regis Toronto.
Ford, who ran a Toronto-based family business, Deco Labels & Flexible Packaging, before entering municipal politics as a city councilor in 2010, considers Trump “a shrewd operator” and “a smart businessperson.”
The incoming president “knows about Ontario,” the premier said.
“Not one senator, not one governor, not one congressperson or businessperson, has said that Canada is a problem,” said Ford, who opened a Deco branch in Chicago in 1999.
He said Trump has not set his sights on such other U.S. allies as the United Kingdom and France, but “wants to target” the U.S.’s “closest friend,” Canada.
“I’m not too sure if it’s personal against Trudeau, but Trudeau is on his way out, so hopefully we’ll have a better conversation,” said Ontario’s premier, who added that he would consider taking a run at federal politics in the future.
On Monday, Trump posted on Truth Social that “the United States can no longer suffer the massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat.”
Doug Ford campaigns at Cambrian College in Sudbury, northern Ontario, on April 11, 2018. (Steve Russell/Toronto Star)
“Justin Trudeau knows this, and resigned,” said the next, and 47th, U.S. president.
But Trudeau is still the prime minister, and Ford and the premiers of the other nine provinces and three territories will meet with him next Wednesday in Ottawa to address the Trump tariff issue.
Despite his departure as prime minister sometime over the next two months when the next Liberal leader is expected to be chosen, Trudeau should not think “he’s off the hook” and Canadian premiers “will hold his feet to the fire” in ensuring that Canada is ready to respond to the Trump administration’s imminent and punitive trade measure, said Ford.
He chairs the Council of the Federation – a gathering of Canada’s premiers, which has kept Canada-U.S. relations top of mind and has made avoiding U.S. tariffs “a priority,” according to a statement issued last month.
“Canada and the U.S. form one of the largest integrated markets in the world, with more than C$3.5 billion [about US$2.4 billion] worth of goods and services crossing the border each day. The U.S. sells more goods and services to Canada than it sells to China, Japan and Germany combined.”
To help assuage Trump’s concerns over border security, Ford’s government launched on Tuesday “Operation Deterrence,” to crack down on illegal crossings, and drugs and guns – 90% of which are entering Ontario from the U.S., the premier told Fox News Digital.
On drugs, he said his government is also collaborating with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to identify the source of fentanyl ingredients – and whether they originated in “China or Mexico or the U.S.”
Last month, the Trudeau government announced its own border-security plan.
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After two years of strong performance driven by a shift to a war economy, Russia’s economic situation is weakening, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told Euronews.
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And although the IMF raised its forecast for Russia’s 2026 growth in its April outlook from 0.8% to 1.1%, Georgieva told Euronews this did not reflect the full picture of the economic weakening.
“The higher oil prices do give a breather to Russia,” Georgieva said, arguing the hike cannot offset the bigger hit to Russia’s economy.
“They have depleted their buffers dramatically,” Georgieva said. The oil price windfall “appears to be used to rebuild buffers rather than to inject more investment into the economy,” she explained.
“Growth has slowed down significantly. Now we are projecting 1%. Before the war, their potential growth was 1.6%,” Georgieva pointed out.
The IMF managing director also told Euronews that it is important to consider other economic indicators to better understand Russia’s current economic situation.
“Inflation is high. That means that interest rates are high, almost 15%.”
The IMF does not expect to see “material impact on growth in Russia,” Georgieva said. “It is a country whose medium (and) long-term prospects have worsened significantly.”
She listed three grounds on which the prospects have worsened. The first is losing people.
“A country that was in a demographic decline to begin with now lost so many young people for a terrible reason,” Georgieva explained.
The second factor is the sanctions, specifically the way they “bite a lot on the technology front.”
“What we see in the oil and gas sector in Russia, there is a tremendous problem with lack of technological renewal that is restricting the ability of the sector to expand,” she said.
And the third is the fact that “Russia lost standing.”
“That translates into many tangible and non-tangible losses. I mean, just think of the young Russians that could have built relations with Europeans and others and did not because of the war,” Georgieva stated.
“So, on the whole, Russia is coming crippled,” she concluded.
Not even the professionals inside the New York Knicks press conference room could contain themselves as the clock neared 1 a.m. Thursday morning. Some clapped when Knicks head coach Mike Brown hailed reserve guard Jose Alvarado’s performance—8 points, 2 rebounds and 3 assists, all in the fourth quarter—during the largest comeback in NBA Finals history, which put the Knicks one win away from their first title since 1973.
“I know a lot of you guys can’t (clap) because you’re in the media, and you have to stay neutral,” Brown said, before doing something he wasn’t supposed to do. “I’m going to f—king clap for Jose,” he said. “Sorry, mom.”
It was that kind of night. None of this—erasing a 29-point deficit, these Knicks being one game away from hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy—was supposed to happen.
A few yards from the pressers, some of the world’s biggest celebrities partied in the bowels of Madison Square Garden, denying gentle requests to climb into the private cars waiting to whisk them away.
Other fans, still in disbelief, had gone from second-guessing why they’d spent thousands of dollars to see their team get blown out in the NBA Finals to wondering how they got away with such a bargain to see Knicks’ history. They belted Knicks in five! down the escalators, slowly leaving the building before massing outside, where scores of police officers sought to maintain order. Or maybe to re-establish it, after what transpired inside MSG during the second half of Game 4.
As the press conferences continued, players consistently reminded writers that there was still one more game to win. But if New York completes its Finals quest, Wednesday’s game will go down in the city’s sports lore.
New York is used to playing the role of top dog. Ensconced in midtown, with their multi-thousand-dollar tickets and A-list supporters, playing in “The World’s Most Famous Arena,” the Knicks are worth $9.85 billion, the third-most valuable team in the NBA. Its billionaire owner James Dolan shared a box with President Donald Trump on Monday night.
In the last few decades, the Knicks have more often represented flash than fight. But this team—assembled via free agency, trades and second-round picks, led by a coach on his fourth stop—has bucked that stereotype. Trailing by 27 at half, they were used to being down and doubted. They chipped away at their deficit, holding the Spurs to 30 second-half points as the gap narrowed and narrowed. Fans in the packed arena, famous or not, remained engaged throughout. Their thunderous yells surely contributed to Spurs star Victor Wembanyama clanking two late free throws with the Knicks down one.
In the waning moments, Jalen Brunson missed a three-pointer to take the lead, but OG Anunoby glided to the hoop in time to get just enough of his hand on the ball to direct it basket-ward.
Brown called Anunoby’s game-winning tip-in with 1.2 seconds left “the most iconic shot in the history of New York basketball.” Images of that two-finger tap feel destined to adorn childhood bedrooms, subway cars and billboards for decades. One is already on a trading card, with a nickname to boot.
“Right hand of God,” Karl-Anthony Towns dubbed the play. A piece of the net will be inserted into one of Topps’ cards. The ball and OG’s jersey will likely be museum pieces, if not auction-house items, one day. Mike Breen’s triple “It’s good!” call on ESPN is certain to play over and over and over again.
OMG!, Thursday morning’s New York Post blared. Meanwhile more than 40 commemorative physical tickets handed out to attendees on Wednesday were bought on eBay by 10 a.m. Thursday. The cheapest ticket for a potential Game 6 on the secondary market now? It’s more than $12,000.
History sells.
The Knicks had already been credited with bringing New Yorkers together. Trump and Mayor Zohran Mamdani cheered for the same side in Game 3. Taylor Swift, sitting in a packed celebrity row, shared the same euphoria being projected on brownstones across NYC’s five boroughs and beamed from its street-corner Wi-Fi terminals. For the time being, the fighting between the Knicks and the city over watch parties has been forgotten.
“If there’s one thing Knicks fans don’t need permission for, it’s showing up for our team wherever we may be,” Mamdani posted on X earlier in the day after a watch party outside the team’s venue was scrapped.
When the final buzzer sounded, and the players, celebrities, crowds and city streets seemingly rose in unison, palms aloft, “You could just feel the abundance of joy,” Towns said.
By 2 a.m., with ears still ringing, fans were finally making their way home. It was pitch black on Gotham’s quieter streets. It felt more like dawn.
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JERUSALEM: The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) convened an emergency summit this week amid growing concern over the global rise in antisemitism following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre in 2023.
The three-day conference in the Israeli capital comes at a time when social media influencers are consistently pushing antisemitic hate to their millions of followers.
“Attacking the Jews means attacking the very roots of one’s own faith. It means fighting against the people who gave us the Bible. Jesus was Jewish,” ICEJ President Dr. Jürgen Bühler told Fox News Digital.
CANADA’S CARNEY PLEDGES ACTION ON ANTISEMITISM AMID BACKLASH OVER NEW ANTI-HATE COUNCIL MEMBERS
Christian leaders attend the ICEJ’s emergency summit on antisemitism on Wednesday, June 10th, 2026 at the Vert hotel in Jerusalem, Israel. (Amelie Botbol for Fox News Digital)
“If you don’t fight antisemitism, you are sawing off the branch you sit on. For the church to survive, we need to connect to our roots, fighting antisemitism needs to be at the forefront of every pastor and every leader around the world,” he added.
One of the central themes of the conference is Replacement Theology, a doctrine that holds the Church has replaced the Jewish people in God’s plan.
“The Bible is full of God’s eternal plan which includes the Jewish people. Paul’s statement in Romans 11 that ‘the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable’ relates to Israel. This is a doctrine that goes contrary to what the New and Old Testament are teaching and that’s why we need to have this conference,” Bühler said.
“One cannot deny the Jewishness of the Bible. The most frequent word in the Bible is the name of God and the second most used name is Israel. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, he died in Jerusalem, resurrected in Jerusalem, rose to heaven from Jerusalem and he is coming back to Jerusalem. If you read the Bible it is so easy to see the connection to Israel,” he added.
HUCKABEE CONDEMNS EFFORTS TO ERASE JEWISH HISTORY TO THE HOLY LAND AS ‘ABSURD’
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee places a note in the Western Wall as Holy Week and Passover come to a close. (@USAmbIsrael/X)
Israel’s newly appointed Special Envoy to the Christian world, George Deek, addressed the meeting on Wednesday, while Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee are scheduled to attend the summit’s closing event on Thursday at the foreign ministry as keynote speakers.
In a recorded message broadcast at the summit, Israeli President Isaac Herzog thanked Christian leaders for mobilizing against antisemitism.
“We are witnessing a very disturbing surge of antisemitism all over the world. This is a major challenge for humanity. This is the age-old, perhaps the oldest plague in humanity, and we have to stand up together — thought leaders and religious leaders — and say, ‘No more,’ and teach people about the sources of this evil and how to counter antisemitism,” Herzog said.
“I believe that countering antisemitism requires a combination of three major elements: law enforcement, adjudication and education,” he said.
Vice President JD Vance, left, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog shake hands during a meeting at the presidential residence, in Jerusalem, on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025. (Leo Correa/AP)
“You, dear leaders, have a huge capability of fighting back, and I bless you. Truly, I bless you as the president of Israel for coming here and fighting back, for coming here and discussing how to fight back,” Herzog concluded.
Dr. Andrew J. Nolte, who launched Regent University’s Israel Institute in 2024, said students often repeat antisemitic claims, including the accusation that Jews killed Jesus.
“The answer from a Christian theological perspective is that we all killed Jesus, he died for our sins. There is a theological understanding of the guilt we bear for Jesus’s blood,” Nolte told Fox News Digital.
ISRAEL LOOKING FOR ‘SOLUTIONS’ TO OPEN CHRISTIAN SITES AFTER BARRING CHURCH LEADER ON PALM SUNDAY DUE TO WAR
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre dates back to the fourth century. (Archivio Università di Roma Sapienza)
While Israel has faced recent criticism over treatment of Christians – mostly at the hands of a few extremists – the country is seen as a beacon of freedom of religion in the Middle East.
According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, as of December 2025, Israel’s Christian population stood at approximately 184,200 people, representing 1.9% of the country’s total population. The community grew by 0.7% over the previous year.
Arab Christians account for 78.7% of Israel’s Christian population and comprise 6.8% of the country’s overall Arab population.
Most Arab Christians reside in northern Israel. Among non-Arab Christians, 42% live in the Tel Aviv and Central districts, compared to 33.9% in the Northern and Haifa districts.
Christian pilgrims carrying wooden crosses walk through Jerusalem’s Old City towards the Holy Sepulcre church during the Orthodox Good Friday procession on May 3, 2024. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images)
Nolte said that Christians in Israel hold prominent positions, noting that the provost of the University of Haifa is a Maronite Christian and that Christian communities in the country report relatively high income levels. He also said that, in most cases involving civil rights and religious freedom brought by Christians in Israel, the outcomes have been decided in their favor.
“If you are comparing Israel to any Muslim country in the Middle East, the status of Christians is much higher. As a Christian, you are better off here than anywhere else in the region,” he added.
CHRISTOPHER RUFO: THE POLITICAL RIGHT AND THE ANTISEMITIC INFLUENCER PROBLEM
Israeli Christians in Nazareth hold a Christmas parade on Dec. 24, 2025. (Eitan Elhadez-Barak/TPS-IL)
Christopher Kuehl, founder of Present Witness and co-host of the One New Man podcast, emphasized that biblical illiteracy among younger generations is fueling confusion about Israel.
He opened his remarks at the conference by citing a recent U.S. study on Gen Z’s alignment with biblical teachings and how closely their worldview corresponds with scripture, noting that only about 5% demonstrated strong adherence.
“Israel gets thrown into that ignorance, that biblical ignorance. Social media is what teaches children and Gen Z; they spend eight hours a day on it and go to church once a week for 20 minutes. How does one create a message in 20 minutes that will overcome spending eight hours on social media every day?” Kuehl told Fox News Digital.
FAITH UNDER FIRE: NETANYAHU CALLS OUT EFFORTS TO DIVIDE CHRISTIANS AND ISRAEL IN US
One Israeli pastor says one of the biggest challenges facing Israel’s Christian community is a low birth rate. Jesus King Church in Nazareth, Israel. (Photo: Pastor Saleem Shalash)
Pastor Matthew Earls joined the summit as part of Eagles’ Wings Ministries’ Israel Christian Nexus program, which focuses on young Christian leaders and gives them the opportunity to experience Israel early in their careers and build a well-rounded perspective.
“We want to teach biblical truth so that the church does not look completely different in the next generation,” Earls told Fox News Digital. “The greater mission is one of solidarity with the people of Israel, and of equipping people with talking points in the hope that dialogue can take place and lead to greater understanding, or at least mutual respect for one another’s positions,” he said.
Sacha Roytman, CEO of the Combat Antisemitism Movement, told Fox News Digital that Christians and Jews face many of the same challenges in defending their faith, history, and future, adding that those who reject Jews and Zionism also reject the Christian worldview because the two are aligned.
Orthodox Christians carry wooden crosses along the Via Dolorosa (Way of Suffering) in the Old City of Jerusalem during the Orthodox Good Friday procession before Holy Saturday. (Saeed Qaq/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“I’m here to share this message with Christian leaders who go back to their communities empowered with more knowledge, more energy, and different tools to fight this battle,” Roytman said.
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As part of its research, CAM has examined how social media algorithms amplify antisemitic content and conspiracy theories. “We discovered that the algorithms are trained to deliver engaging content that upsets people and keeps them hooked. Often, it is anti-establishment content and conspiracy theories that fuel antisemitism,” Roytman said.
More than 200 theologians, pastors and ministry leaders from over 30 countries are attending in person, alongside approximately 3,000 online participants.
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