Less than one in five Americans favor the U.S. annexing Canada and semiautonomous island Greenland, according to a new survey released Tuesday.
The Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that 17 percent of U.S. adults favor Canada becoming the U.S.’s 51st state, an idea that President Trump has brought up several times since winning the 2024 presidential election. Over half of the respondents, 57 percent, are opposed to the potential expansion of the U.S.’s territory, while 26 percent said they were unsure.
Similar figures were discovered when respondents were asked about the possibility of Washington annexing Greenland, a foreign policy goal Trump has talked about in his first term and reiterated in the last few months. Around 19 percent of Americans are in favor of the U.S. annexing Greenland, a mineral-rich island whose foreign policy and defense are overseen by Denmark. Nearly half of Americans, 49 percent, are opposed to the idea while another third, 32 percent, were unsure, according to the survey.
Vice President Vance said he will travel to Greenland on Friday, a decision that came after officials in both Denmark and Greenland saw his wife’s, Second Lady Usha Vance, visit as a provocation and part of Trump’s push to overtake the Arctic island.
“There was so much excitement around Usha’s visit to Greenland this Friday, that I decided that I didn’t want her to have all that fun by herself, and so I’m going to join her,” Vance said Tuesday.
Usha Vance was set to travel with other U.S. officials as part of Washington’s delegation, with Greenland Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede saying it is a part of a “very aggressive” pressure campaign “against Greenlandic society.”
Voters were split when asked if Trump has prioritized the most important issues in the first two months of his second term in the Oval Office. Around 43 percent said the president has focused on the country’s “most important problems,” while 45 percent of Americans said the commander-in-chief has focused on issues “that aren’t very important.” Some 12 percent were not sure, according to the survey.
The poll was conducted from March 20-24 among 1,677 U.S. adults. The margin of error was 2.7 percent.
