United States President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he "won't bend at all" when it comes to his decisions to impose tariffs, particularly blasting Canada for the US spending "$200 billion a year to subsidize" it.

"We don't need their cars, we don't need their energy, we don't need their lumber, we don't need anything that they give," he claimed and insisted he would much rather "make the cars" in the US than import them from Canada. "There is not a thing that we need. Now there will be a little disruption, but it won't be very long," he stressed, asserting that Canada needs the US, not the other way round.

Trump claimed that "Canada only works as a state", and that if it joined the US, it would be "the most incredible country visually," claiming the border between the two countries was created just as an "artificial line" a long time ago and "makes no sense."