The Canadian PM believes that the US president wants the country’s mineral resources, the Toronto Star has reported Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been caught on a hot mike telling businessmen that US President Donald Trump is not joking when he talks about absorbing Canada, the Toronto Star newspaper has reported.

Trump reiterated his desire to make Canada “our 51st state” when he spoke to journalists in the Oval Office earlier this week. “I would love to see that. Some people say that would be a long shot. If people wanted to play the game right, it would be 100% certain that they would become a state,” he claimed.

The US president and the Canadian PM discussed the hiccups in their relations during two phone calls on Monday.

On Thursday, Trudeau revealed some of the details of those conversations to businessmen and union leaders ahead of a closed-door meeting as part of the Canada-US Economic Summit in Toronto. The prime minister thought he was speaking confidentially, but it turned out that his microphone had not been turned off promptly and he was overheard by journalists. “I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have but that may be even why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state,” Trudeau said as cited by the Toronto Star.

The US wants to “benefit” from Canada’s natural resources and “Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country, and it is a real thing,” he warned.

When Trump first raised the possibility of making Canada part of the US in December, Trudeau insisted that there was “not a snowball’s chance in hell” of it happening.

Last week, the US president argued that Canada would struggle to remain viable if it stopped getting “hundreds of billions of dollars” in subsidies from Washington. The solution would be joining the US, which would result in “much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada – and no tariffs!” In early February, Trump imposed 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico and 10% on imports from China – citing concerns over illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Ottawa vowed to retaliate by slapping equivalent duties on US goods. However, Trump decided to postpone the introduction of tariffs on the two neighboring countries for 30 days in return for promises by both governments to strengthen border security.