America's long and close relationship with Canada is on full display in California this week,

where our neighbors to the north dispatched firefighters and airplanes to help with the wildfires.

But Canada's assistance comes at a unique time, when President-elect Donald Trump is threatening to impose steep tariffs on Canadian imports

and dismissively calling Canada the 51st state.

Kirsten Hillman is Canada's ambassador to the United States. She joins us now. Ambassador,

welcome to the NewsHour. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me. It's great to see you.

We ask you about these comments from President Elect Trump calling Canada the 51st state,

talking about annexing Canadian territory. What is your response to those

comments? And how are they resonating in Canada? Well, I think that Canadians, so your second question,

you know, have enjoyed a little bit of teasing back and forth for a while. There's a pivot more

recently that's been a bit tougher.

And I think that's probably landing less well.

But I think really what matters here is that the president elected, he's a negotiator,

and he's trying to set the stage for a discussion.

And he clearly wants to have a discussion with us around things that matter to him,

like the border and perhaps other issues around the economy. And we're ready for that discussion,

and we're not, you know, I think it's important not to confuse maybe some of the dynamics of

setting himself up for that discussion and really the substance that has to come next.

You called it teasing and also this pivot. We should mention after Prime Minister Trudeau announced that he was stepping down,

it seemed like Mr. Trump doubled down on a lot of that language.

He's also talked about using economic force to annex part of Canada.

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