When asked Thursday why "Axe the tax" is his main slogan as U.S. president-elect Donald Trump threatens Canada with tariffs and says it will become the 51st U.S. state, Poilievre pointed to the carbon tax as one of the leading ways Trump could make it happen. Poilievre said the carbon tax would have Trump "on the phone with our trucking companies, our factories, our mines. He'd be saying, pick up your billions of dollars and move 50 km south."