"Time to Say Sorry": Inside the Growing Pressure on Trump to Apologise to Canada — and Why an Entire Nation Has Its "Elbows Up"
Introduction
The call for Donald Trump to apologise to Canada is not coming from Democrats. It is not coming from Canadian officials demanding diplomatic satisfaction. It is coming, with increasing urgency, from Republicans — from American business owners, tourism operators, festival organisers, border community mayors, and state-level elected officials who have watched the economic consequences of Trump's sustained campaign of insults, tariff threats, and annexation rhetoric against the United States' closest neighbour, largest trading partner, and most historically trusted ally, and concluded that the damage it has caused to American communities is real, measurable, compounding — and reversible only if the president takes the specific step of saying he is sorry.
The most prominent voice in that unusual chorus belongs to Billy Nungesser, the Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana — a Republican, a Trump ally, a man whose political identity is not built around opposition to the president he is now publicly asking to change course. Nungesser returned from a week-long tourism promotion trip to Canada and told reporters, and then told anyone who would listen, what he had heard from Canadians directly: they are not coming back. Not until Trump apologises. Not until Trump is out of office. One or the other. "They just pretty much said that they're not coming back until he's either out of office or he apologises," Nungesser said. The precision of that sentiment — its binary clarity — captures something important about where the US-Canada relationship stands as of mid-2026: not at a temporary diplomatic chill that will resolve when the next summit produces a communiqué, but at a point of genuine popular alienation, felt personally by tens of millions of Canadians, that is producing behavioural change with concrete economic consequences on the American side of the border.
The Words That Started the Rupture: The "51st State" and What It Actually Means to Canadians
To understand why an apology is being demanded — and why it would need to be genuine to matter — it is necessary to understand what Trump's words have actually communicated to Canadians, and why those words have landed with a force that many Americans have underestimated.
Trump first suggested that Canada become the 51st state of the United States in early December 2024, in the immediate aftermath of a dinner with then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Mar-a-Lago. Fox News, citing anonymous sources, reported that Trump told Trudeau that if his tariffs were going to kill the Canadian economy, Canada might as well become a US state. Then-Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc described the comment as not "a serious comment." Trudeau said Canada becoming the 51st state was a "non-starter" and that "Canadians are incredibly proud of being Canadian."
Trump did not take the hint. He repeated the suggestion in January 2025, writing on Truth Social that "many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State" and arguing that if Canada merged with the US, "there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down." On February 3, 2025, he told reporters: "What I'd like to see is Canada become our 51st state. We give them protection, military protection. We don't need them to build our cars. I'd rather see Detroit or South Carolina, or Tennessee." In April 2025, he posted the comment on the morning of Canada's federal election. In May 2025, during a White House meeting with the incoming Prime Minister Mark Carney, he cracked a joke about a "merger" of the two countries — to which Carney responded, in a phrase that has since become one of the most widely quoted statements of the Canada-US crisis: "Canada is never for sale." In June 2026, talking about the Golden Dome missile defence plans, Trump said: "Canada called me a couple of weeks ago and they want to be part of it. To which I said, well, why don't you just join our country, you'll become 51, become the 51st state and you get it for free."
The cumulative effect of more than eighteen months of these remarks — combined with tariffs that were imposed on Canada using national security justification under Section 232, a provision designed for adversaries not allies; additional tariffs added in retaliation for a political advertisement; and a broader rhetorical posture toward Canada that Prime Minister Carney has described as the end of a friendship — has been a transformation in how Canadians relate to the United States that polling and spending data now document with striking clarity.
The Polling: 57% of Canadians Want an Official Apology Demanded
A Research Co. survey, reported by Cult MTL and cited across multiple outlets covering the Canada-US relationship, found that 57 per cent of Canadians agree that Canada should officially demand an apology from Trump for his statements about Canada becoming an American state. This is a majority of the Canadian population — in a country of approximately 41 million people, 57 per cent represents roughly 23 million adults who believe that diplomatic acknowledgment of what was said, and what it communicated, is warranted.
The poll does not prove that an apology would immediately send Canadian tourists flooding back across the border. The relationship between stated willingness to return and actual behaviour, in the presence of other factors like exchange rates and airfares and general economic conditions, is complex. But the poll does communicate something that tourism officials, business owners, and politicians in border states have been hearing directly from Canadian visitors and former visitors: for many Canadians, the travel boycott is not primarily about money. It is personal. Trump's repeated suggestions that Canada should cease to exist as an independent country — framed variously as economic necessity, military protection payment, or geopolitical common sense — have been received by Canadians not as banter but as a sustained assertion that their country's sovereignty is negotiable, conditional, and ultimately dispensable. "Enough is enough," said one Canadian interviewed by CNBC. "Why do we have to make you great again at our expense?"
Steve Mossop, executive vice president at Leger, a major Montreal-based polling service, assessed the situation with characteristic precision: "Canadians have remained steadfast." The boycott that began as an unusual swell of Canadian patriotism in early 2025 has evolved into what CNBC described as "a new social and economic order" — affecting what brands Canadians buy, where they vacation, how they vote, and what they regard as the appropriate relationship between their country and the neighbour to the south that has now, repeatedly, questioned whether Canada should exist at all.
The Tourism Collapse: From Louisiana Festivals to Las Vegas Casinos
The economic consequences of the Canadian tourist boycott are documented across the United States with a specificity that reveals how deeply Canadian visitors are woven into the economic fabric of American communities that are nowhere near the Canadian border.
Statistics Canada reported that Canadian resident return trips from the United States fell 12.5 per cent year-over-year in February 2026 — the 14th consecutive month of annual declines. That sustained fourteen-month run of consecutive year-over-year decreases means this is not a temporary anomaly. It is a durable behavioural shift. Air travel tells the same story: Canadian return trips from the US by air plunged almost 18 per cent in the year through January 2026, according to the Canadian government. Car crossings tumbled nearly 27 per cent year-over-year in January. Canadian bookings at US mountain destinations tracked by Inntopia Business Intelligence sank more than 45 per cent in January 2026 from the same month a year earlier.
The geographic spread of the impact reveals just how widespread Canadian visitor spending is across the American economy. Florida — historically one of the most popular winter destinations for Canadian snowbirds — recorded a more than 18 per cent decline in Canadian visitation over the first two quarters of 2025. Canadian tourism to Louisiana fell 20 to 30 per cent, according to Nungesser's own assessment after his promotion trip. Las Vegas has seen such a decline in overall visitation figures that the city's tourism union coined the phrase "Trump slump" to describe it. Jay Peak in northern Vermont reported a notable absence of Canadian school trips that previously helped fill its slopes and associated water park — a very specific, very local economic consequence of a national diplomatic crisis. At the Folk Alliance International conference in New Orleans in January, Canadian attendance fell from upwards of 17 per cent of attendees in other years to roughly 5 per cent. Several Canadian companies that had previously sponsored the event chose not to.
The Grand Reveil Acadien — the Grand Acadian Awakening festival near Lafayette, Louisiana, held every five years to celebrate the Acadian descendants of early French settlers who came to Louisiana from Canada in the 1700s — was supposed to welcome many Canadian visitors this year. Instead, Randal Menard, president of the non-profit that runs the festival, reported that at least one tour company with plans to bring four charter buses of Canadians cancelled. "After the tariffs and the president's comments, he let us know that people were dropping like flies," Menard said. The Acadian community's specific historical connection to both Louisiana and Canada — their ancestors literally came from Canada to Louisiana in the 18th century — makes the absence of Canadian festival visitors particularly resonant as a symbol of the damage Trump's words have done to relationships that predate the United States itself.
Billy Nungesser: A Republican Who Came Home Changed
Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser deserves extended attention in this story because his trajectory — Republican partisan, Trump ally, person who went to Canada expecting to promote tourism and came home asking his president to say sorry — is both humanly interesting and politically significant.
Nungesser's trip was not a fact-finding mission about diplomatic tensions. He was in Canada to do what he always does: promote Louisiana, promote New Orleans, promote the Cajun and Creole culture and cuisine and music that make Louisiana one of America's most distinctive travel destinations. He distributed tabasco ice cream in Canadian train stations. He met with travel agents. He showed up, as Louisiana officials often do, with the enthusiasm and warmth that has made Louisiana tourism so successful at attracting international visitors across decades.
What he heard, at train station after train station, in meeting after meeting, was not the kind of gentle diplomatic concern that can be managed with a nice brochure and a good meal. "I didn't realize what the impact has been until I got here," he told Fox 8 Live. "The pushback from the president's comments about the 51st state, the tariffs, have really left a bad taste in Canadians' mouths." The phrase he heard from Canadian after Canadian was the one he brought back and repeated to reporters: "They're not coming back until he's either out of office or he apologises."
Nungesser is a Republican. He supports Trump's agenda in the great majority of its dimensions. He is not making a partisan argument against the president. He is making a business argument, a community argument, and — unmistakably — a human argument: "In all that Canadians have done, fight forest fires in America, we've just been great friends for so long. It breaks my heart and embarrasses me what our president said about the 51st state." His offer of what an apology might accomplish was not hyperbolic: he admitted it "might not fix everything" but said he didn't know what else to do. "I just wanted to let them know not everyone in America feels that way."
His call for an apology was echoed, in substance if not always in identical language, by elected officials, business owners, and community leaders across the states most affected by the Canadian tourism decline. The New Republic documented the political consequences emerging in Michigan — where Trump's aggression toward Canada, including a threat to block the Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario to Detroit, created an opening for Democratic congressional candidates in districts like Macomb County whose economic interdependence with Ontario is embedded in the daily life of the community. "Michigan and Ontario are uniquely connected," said Democratic congressional candidate Christina Hines. "We should be protecting cross-border trade and cooperation — not escalating conflict." Two vulnerable House Republican incumbents went, as The New Republic noted, "suspiciously quiet" when the bridge threat made headlines.
Mark Carney's Apology — and Why Trump's Own Non-Apology Matters
There is a specific and illuminating irony in the current demand for a Trump apology to Canada: the most prominent recent act of apology in the bilateral relationship has run in the opposite direction, with Carney apologising to Trump for a political advertisement rather than Trump apologising to Canada for anything.
The backstory: Ontario Premier Doug Ford aired a political advertisement critical of Trump's tariffs that used edited footage of former President Ronald Reagan arguing against protectionism. Trump described the footage as "possibly" artificial intelligence, accused Canada of spreading misinformation about Reagan's tariff record, cut off trade negotiations, and raised the tariff on Canada by an additional 10 per cent. Carney, who had apparently advised against the ad and was caught off-guard by Ford's decision to run it, apologised to Trump. "I did apologize to the president," Carney told reporters after an APEC summit in South Korea. "The president was offended by the act, or by the ad, rather. It's not something I would have done — which is to put in place that advertisement — and so I apologized to him."
Trump accepted the apology with apparent pleasure. "He apologized for what they did with the commercial because it was a false commercial," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. "And he did apologize and I appreciate it." He also noted, in the same breath, that while he appreciated Carney's apology, he would not resume trade talks with Canada. The apology had been accepted. The tariffs and the 51st state rhetoric continued.
This sequence illustrates the structural asymmetry of the current relationship: Canada's prime minister apologised to the US president for a political advertisement critical of his policies. No apology has been offered by the US president for comments suggesting Canada should cease to exist as a sovereign nation. Nungesser's request — and the 57 per cent of Canadians who want their government to demand one — exists in that asymmetric space.
The NATO Dimension: When "We Don't Need Allies" Landed in Ottawa
The 51st state rhetoric is not the only dimension of Trump's approach to Canada that has generated demands for apology. In January 2026, Trump made comments on Fox News downplaying the overall role of NATO troops in Afghanistan, insisting that the United States has never needed its NATO allies for anything, or asked anything of them. The comments were directed at NATO generally but were acutely felt in Canada, which sent 40,000 troops to Afghanistan over 13 years, where they served on the front lines. 158 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat lost their lives in that conflict.
Prime Minister Carney pointed to these facts when asked about Trump's comments — noting the scale of Canada's commitment and the price it paid in lives — but declined, when directly asked, to call on Trump to apologise. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer used stronger language, calling Trump's remarks "insulting" and "frankly appalling." A Castanet poll from that period found a majority of respondents believing Canada should demand an apology specifically for the NATO comments. Carney's restraint in not directly calling for an apology reflects the diplomatic calculation of a leader who must manage the relationship with the most powerful country in the world — but it has not prevented Canadian public opinion from forming its own view of what is owed.
What Canada Has Done Instead of Waiting: The "Elbows Up" Economy
One of the most significant dimensions of the Canada-US relationship story in 2026 is what Canada has done while waiting for an apology that has not come. Rather than simply absorbing the insults and the tariffs passively, Canada under Mark Carney has executed a deliberate strategy of economic diversification and trade relationship development that is beginning to alter the structural dependency that Trump was, apparently, attempting to exploit.
Carney's recent global tour — in which he visited international leaders and strengthened trade alliances while pointedly skipping the United States — is one visible dimension of this strategy. Canada's turn toward domestic consumption — what Canadian media have described as the "Buy Canada" movement, with Canadians demonstrating measurable preference shifts toward domestic brands, domestic travel, and domestic cultural consumption — is another. The phrase "elbows up" has become the informal motto of Canada's response: a hockey idiom meaning to protect yourself, to be physical, to not be pushed around.
The economic implications of a sustained Canadian preference shift away from US goods and destinations are significant, and they cut both ways. Canada's economy adjusts to reduced US dependency, building domestic capacity and alternative trade relationships that, once established, will not simply dissolve when the diplomatic temperature changes. The United States economy absorbs the loss of Canadian tourist spending — $20 billion or more annually in normal years — and the reputational cost, in Canadian and broader international opinion, of a relationship defined by repeated demands for annexation rather than partnership.
Will There Be an Apology? The Honest Assessment
The honest assessment of whether Donald Trump will apologise to Canada is: no. Not unprompted. Not in the form that Nungesser, the 57 per cent of Canadians, the festival organisers, the border mayors, and the tourism operators are asking for. Trump does not apologise. It is one of the most consistent personal and political characteristics in his public life. His response to the Carney apology for the advertisement — accepting it warmly while immediately clarifying he would not resume trade talks — is a more accurate portrait of the bilateral dynamic than any optimistic reading of recent diplomatic progress.
What might change the calculus is not diplomatic pressure from Canada or moral pressure from American observers who believe an apology is warranted. What might change it — and what Nungesser's call represents, in its political DNA — is the accumulation of economic evidence that the insults have real costs to American workers, businesses, and communities, delivered with sufficient weight and persistence through Republican political channels that the political calculation shifts. That process is underway. The Michigan congressional dynamics, the Louisiana tourism numbers, the Las Vegas casino data, the Vermont ski resort figures — they are all inputs into a political calculation whose outcome depends on whether the economic cost of the 51st state rhetoric becomes, in electoral terms, too expensive to maintain.
The Canadians who said they would not return until Trump apologised or left office are not making an idle threat. Fourteen months of consecutive annual declines in Canadian visits to the US is not a temporary mood. It is a behavioural shift by tens of millions of people who took something personally that was meant, or at least taken, personally. "Canadians are much like Louisianans," Nungesser said, with the affectionate familiarity of someone who has spent years building friendships across the border. "I don't want the comments — the stupid comments — of a president and the tariffs to destroy those friendships."
Whether that sentiment, amplified by the economic evidence that those friendships have genuine monetary value, is enough to produce the apology being asked for — that is the question whose answer will define the next chapter of the most consequential bilateral relationship in North American history.
Sources
- Global News — Trump Should Apologize to Canada for 51st State Remarks, Louisiana Official Says (September 28, 2025):
https://globalnews.ca/news/11452383/donald-trump-apologize-canada-51st-state-billy-nungesser/ - Louisiana Illuminator — Trump's Comments Hurt Canadian Tourism in Louisiana. Lt. Gov. Nungesser Wants an Apology (October 10, 2025):
https://lailluminator.com/2025/10/10/canada-tourism/ - Yahoo News Canada — Canadians Are Staying Away. US Tourism States Are Feeling It (October 8, 2025):
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/canadians-staying-away-u-tourism-113019979.html - The Travel — Canadian Travelers' Latest Ultimatum for the US Could End Their Travel Boycott (May 2026):
https://www.thetravel.com/canadian-travelers-latest-ultimatum-for-the-us-could-end-their-travel-boycott/ - CNBC — One Year After Trump's Sovereignty Threats, Canadians Keep 'Elbows Up' (March 7, 2026):
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/07/canada-boycott-trump-travel-alcohol-economy.html - The Hill — Canadian PM Mark Carney Confirms He Apologized to Donald Trump Over Reagan Tariffs Ad (November 1, 2025):
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https://newrepublic.com/article/207175/trump-fury-canada-backfires-2026 - Castanet — Should Canada Demand an Apology by US President Donald Trump for Denigrating NATO's Military Contribution? (January 27, 2026):
https://www.castanet.net/news/Poll/596252/Should-Canada-demand-an-apology-by-U-S-President-Donald-Trump-for-denigrating-NATO-s-military-contribution-to-the-war-in-Afghanistan- - CHCH News — Trump Reiterates 51st State Threat, Adds More Tariffs for Canada (October 1, 2025):
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https://policyoptions.irpp.org/2026/04/canada-us-retaliation-trump-guideposts/ - PBS NewsHour — Senate Passes Resolution to Undo Trump's Canada Tariffs in Rare Republican Rebuke:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-senate-expected-to-vote-on-resolution-to-undo-trumps-canada-tariffs - Statistics Canada — Canadian Resident Return Trips from the United States: Monthly Data 2025-2026:
https://www.statcan.gc.ca/