Last night, I had dinner with several Canadian chief executives, all of whom do business in America and are proud to be American allies down through the years.

Yet they asked me why President Trump keeps talking about Canada as the 51st state, when Canadians themselves are proud of their country’s sovereignty.

Now, as a strong defender of Mr. Trump’s reciprocal fair trade policy, I still can’t figure out the 51st state business.

Frankly, I told them they’d have to ask Mr. Trump himself.

Today, in the Oval Office, Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, met with Mr. Trump, and by all accounts it was a very cordial meeting.

Here’s some of the byplay between Messrs. Trump and Carney:

Mr. Carney averred that, “having met with, the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign, last several months, it’s not for sale. Won’t be for sale, ever. But the opportunity is in the partnership, and what we can build together.”

Mr. Trump replied: “Well, I still believe that, but, you know, it takes two to tango, right?” He added: “But never say never, never say never.”  

So there you have it — Canada’s not for sale, according to Prime Minister Carney.

And polls show — by a huge margin — the vast majority of Canadians agree with their new prime minister.

Indeed, that was one of the deciding issues in the campaign that elected Mr. Carney in the first place.

So I never really understood Mr. Trump’s logic in constantly pursuing this 51st state business.

Except it may as well have been a hangover from the Justin Trudeau era, where Mr. Trump had a very strong dislike for Mr. Trudeau — and rightly so.

I was there during some of their acrimonious meetings, and will never forget how Mr. Trudeau held a press conference right after the G-7 meeting in Canada in 2018 and stabbed Mr. Trump in the back — while the president was on his way to meet Xi Jinping at Singapore.

So I sure can’t blame Mr. Trump for an eternal spillover regarding Mr. Trudeau.

Yet, stepping back from all of that for just a moment, I dare say Canada is not the enemy.

They are a longtime partner and ally.

They have weaknesses, to be sure. We’ll get to that in a moment.

But when it comes to pouring it on, I’d like to see Mr. Trump save that vitriol for Communist China — which has become our worst enemy.

And after negotiating for two and a half years and then signing the Phase One China trade deal — the Chinese went out, and adhered to none of it.  

With especially damaging lies about their failure to stop the precursor chemicals for fentanyl that they flood us with on a constant basis.

Sometimes Mr. Trump says America has a $200 billion trade deficit with Canada.

Yet the numbers don’t bear that out.

Canada supplies about a quarter of the refined oil used in America.

And if you exclude oil imports, America has about a $35 billion trade surplus in goods with Canada.

It’s a rare surplus country.

And, by the way, we do need their oil — at least at the moment we do.

Canada’s got problems with unfair banking regulations, a digital services tax on American companies, and a revenue tax on U.S. online streaming companies.

And we have age-old differences in lumber and dairy, I get that.

And the United States-Mexico-Canada trade deal will be under review, and hopefully completed a year from now, when it’s due in May 2026.

So I’m glad the Carney-Trump meeting was cordial and calm.

Somehow, I don’t think Canada is America’s real enemy.

And I still believe that the Ronald Reagan vision of a North American free trade zone — Canada, the U.S., and Mexico — is possible if some of the kinks and glitches can be worked out. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.

But I also believe this: China is our real enemy, and we should focus on that one.

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business Network.