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- in US Politics
Trudeau meets rivals as he seeks united front in face of Trump tariff threat
Canada’s federal government has redoubled its efforts to ward off potentially disastrous tariffs from its closest ally, but provincial leaders have hinted at divergent strategies in response to the protectionist threat from president-elect Donald Trump.Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, convened a rare, in-person meeting with his political rivals on Tuesday to brief them on a surprise meeting with Trump at his Florida resort over the weekend.The gathering in Ottawa was attended by Trudeau’s one-time ally Jagmeet Singh of the New Democratic party and Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader and Trudeau antagonist vying to become prime minister in the coming months.Last week, Trump threatened in a social media post to apply devastating levies of 25% on all goods and services from both Mexico and Canada, vowing to keep them in place until “such time as drugs, in particular fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country!”Most of Canada’s provinces share a land border with the United States and roughly 75% of the country’s exports are bound for American markets.That figure varies wildly when it comes to provincial economies. The Atlantic provinces send as little as 20% down to their southern counterparts. Alberta, on the other hand, sends nearly 90% of its exports to the US, the vast majority of which are oil.If Ontario were a country, it would be the US’s third-largest trading partner.The province’s premier, Doug Ford, has appealed to a shared history with his American neighbours – and nearly C$500bn of annual trade – in a 60-second ad which will run in the US market including on Fox News and during National Football League games with millions of viewers.Ford also repeated warnings that the measure would rebound on US consumers, telling local media: “1,000% it’s gonna hurt the US. Nine thousand Americans wake up every single morning to build products and parts for Ontario, and customers in Ontario … My message to [Trump] is: Why? Why attack your closest friend, your closest ally?”As much as 85% of Ontario’s exports are sent south, with the vast majority related to the automotive industry.But in British Columbia, where less of its economy is tied to the US, the premier, David Eby, has pledged to search out other export markets.Roughly half of the province’s exports, including softwood lumber and metallurgical coal, from BC is bound to the US, according to provincial trade figures.“We’re going to continue to do our work to expand those trading opportunities,” Eby told reporters, a nod to the growing lure of overseas markets for a province on the Pacific Ocean.Given Trump’s previous follow-through on tariff threats, his latest warning prompted a scramble in Ottawa, with Trudeau securing a meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, becoming the first G7 leader to meet the president-elect since the US election.The meeting, attended by key advisers from both camps, was described as a “very productive meeting” by Trump. Trudeau, who flew to Florida with the aim of dissuading the president from imposing tariffs, described the meeting as “excellent conversation” – but left without any assurances.Without that promise, experts say Canada will need a unified voice to lobby elected officials in the US.“Coordinating Canadian leaders to conduct extensive outreach in the US – which worked well during Trump’s first term – will be harder this time, because an election is looming in Canada, because Trudeau is behind in the polls,” said Roland Paris, a former foreign policy adviser to Trudeau and director of the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.“Discord at home makes this advocacy campaign tougher, but that’s the situation that we face now. It’s a different moment in the political life cycle of this government.Poilievre has spent the last week suggesting the prime minister was caught off-guard by Trump’s win in November, despite assurances from federal officials that contingency plans for a Trump or Kamala Harris win were in place.The Conservative leader also criticized Trudeau’s emergency meeting with provincial premiers last week. “Justin Trudeau’s plan to save the economy? A Zoom call!” he posted on social media.Paris cautioned too much against playing domestic politics with a sensitive trade relationship.“Party leader leaders in Canada are going to have to be careful, because if they’re perceived to be working against the national interest in pursuit of their partisan objectives, then that could blow up in their faces too.” More
- in US Politics
Trump maintains hard line on Canada after meeting with Trudeau
Donald Trump said he had a “productive” meeting with Justin Trudeau after the Canadian prime minister paid a surprise trip to his Mar-a-Lago estate amid fears about Trump’s promised tariffs.Trudeau became the first G7 leader to meet with Trump before his second term amid widespread fears in Canada and many other parts of the world that Trump’s trade policy will cause widespread economic chaos.But Trump also seemed to double down on the threat, which he has frequently linked to trying to encourage other countries to combat drug smuggling into the US.“I just had a very productive meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, where we discussed many important topics that will require both Countries to work together to address, like the Fentanyl and Drug Crisis that has decimated so many lives as a result of Illegal Immigration, Fair Trade Deals that do not jeopardize American Workers, and the massive Trade Deficit the US has with Canada,” Trump said in a statement posted to Truth Social, his social media platform.Trudeau and a handful of top advisers flew to Florida amid expectations that Trump will impose a 25% surcharge on Canadian products that could have a devastating impact on Canadian energy, auto and manufacturing exports.The meeting over dinner between Trudeau and Trump, their wives, US cabinet nominees and Canadian officials, lasted over three hours and was described by a senior Canadian official to the Toronto Star as a positive, wide-ranging discussion.Trump added: “I made it very clear that the United States will no longer sit idly by as our Citizens become victims to the scourge of this Drug Epidemic, caused mainly by the Drug Cartels, and Fentanyl pouring in from China. Too much death and hardship! Prime Minister Trudeau has made a commitment to work with us to end this terrible devastation of U.S. Families.”Leaving a Florida hotel in West Palm Beach on Saturday, Trudeau said: “It was an excellent conversation.”The face-to-face meeting came at Trudeau’s suggestion, according to the Canadian official, and had not been disclosed to the Ottawa press corps, which only found out about Trudeau’s trip when flight-tracking software detected the prime minister’s plane was in the air.The two leaders discussed trade; border security; fentanyl; defense matters, including Nato; and Ukraine, along with China, energy issues and pipelines, including those that feed Canadian oil and gas into the US.Over a dinner that reportedly included a dish called “Mary Trump’s Meat Loaf”, the pair also discussed next year’s G7 meeting, which Trudeau will host in Kananaskis, Alberta – seven years after Trump abruptly left the 2018 G7 at Charlevoix, Quebec, amid a US-Canadian dispute over American steel and aluminum tariffs.The Pennsylvania senator-elect Dave McCormick posted a photo to the social media platform X late Friday showing Trudeau sitting beside Trump. Others in the picture included Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary; Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota, the pick for interior secretary; and the US representative Mike Waltz of Florida, the pick for national security adviser.Canadian officials included the public safety minister, Dominic LeBlanc, responsible for border security, and Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford. Canada’s ambassador to Washington, Kirsten Hillman, and Trudeau’s deputy chief of staff, Brian Clow, were also at the dinner.LeBlanc said Canada was prepared to beef up border security, with more money for technology, drones and more Mounties and border guards on the 49th parallel.Earlier on Friday, Trudeau told reporters that he looked forward to having “lots of great conversations” with Trump and that the two would “work together to meet some of the concerns and respond to some of the issues”.Trudeau also said that it was “important to understand is that Donald Trump, when he makes statements like that, he plans on carrying them out. There’s no question about it.“Our responsibility is to point out that in this way, he would actually not just be harming Canadians, who work so well with the United States, he would actually be raising prices for American citizens as well, and hurting American industry and businesses.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut some observers were less than impressed.“The symbolism of Trudeau going down to Palm Beach on bended knee to say ‘Please don’t’ is very, very powerful,” Fen Hampson, professor of international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, told Bloomberg.“The stakes are enormously high and Trudeau has to deliver on this,” Hampson said. “Otherwise, it’s going to be seen by Canadians as a failed mission, because we all know why he’s going down there and it’s not to baste the turkey for Trump.”The scramble to diffuse Trump’s tariff threats has also pre-occupied the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, in recent days.On Thursday, Sheinbaum said she had had a “very kind” phone conversation with Trump in which they discussed immigration and fentanyl. She said the conversation meant there “will not be a potential tariff war” between the US and Mexico.But the two leaders differed on Trump’s claim in a post on Truth Social that Sheinbaum had “agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border”.The Mexican president later said she had not. “Each person has their own way of communicating, but I can assure you, I guarantee you, that we never – additionally, we would be incapable of doing so – proposed that we would close the border in the north [of Mexico], or in the south of the United States. It has never been our idea and, of course, we are not in agreement with that.”Sheinbaum said the pair had not discussed tariffs but their conversation reassured her that no tit-for-tat tariff battle would be necessary.Trump also expanded on his economic message on tariffs to other global leaders on Saturday, threatening Brics countries – an acronym that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – with 100% tariffs if they acted on discussions to drop the dollar as their reserve currency.“The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar while we stand by and watch is OVER,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.Trump said the US would require “a commitment” from Brics nations – a geopolitical alliance that now also includes Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates – “that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs”. More
- in Elections
Biden and Trudeau agree to cooperate on Covid and climate change
In phone call, US and Canadian leaders discuss collaboration on vaccines and plan to meet next monthCanada’s Justin Trudeau and President Joe Biden plan to meet next month, the prime minister’s office said, following a call between the two leaders in which they agreed to join forces to combat coronavirus in North America.The White House said in a statement that the two leaders highlighted the “strategic importance of the US-Canada relationship” and discussed cooperation on a wide-ranging agenda including combating the Covid-19 pandemic and addressing the climate crisis. Continue reading… More
- in US Politics
A Trump win or a disputed result are Canadians' worst fears
Before every US presidential election, a few disgruntled Americans can be relied on to promise that they’ll move to Canada if the results don’t go their way.
Canadians watch US elections with close attention – and occasional horror – but they rarely expect many voters to make good on that vow. A few do make the move; most do not.
However, in recent weeks the political temperature in the US has mounted: senior Republicans have called for supporters to“guard” polling stations, and right-wing militias have openly called for armed revolt in the event that Donald Trump loses.
In Canada, fears are growing that the fallout from a contested vote could spill across the border.
The spectre of unrest, trade disruption, and even violence is likely to have prompted frantic strategising among senior government officials, said Thomas Juneau, a professor of international relations and security studies at the University of Ottawa.
“We are absolutely at the point where we have to think about scenarios that … start raising really difficult questions for Canada,” said Juneau.
A contested election, or a second term of Trump where he begins making decisions that are bad for Canada, are both looking like plausible outcomes, he said.
As one of the United States’ largest trading partners, Canada cannot afford to be caught off-guard. The two nations share the world’s longest undefended border and have highly integrated economies.
“There are few things that Canada does better than understanding the United States,” he said. “There is not a single department in the Canadian government, that doesn’t devote a considerable proportion of its resources and time to managing relations with the US. Folks in the Canadian government think about the relationship every day.”
The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who has spent much of his tenure restraining any urge to overtly criticise Trump, has expressed cautious optimism about the upcoming election and downplayed fears of violence or disruption.
“I think we’re certainly all hoping for a smooth transition or a clear result from the election, like many people are around the world,” he said earlier this month. “If it is less clear, there may be some disruptions and we need to be ready for any outcomes, and I think that’s what Canadians would expect of their government, and we’re certainly reflecting on that.”
Hundreds of billions of dollars cross the border each year in trade networks that thrive not least because of mutual co-operation and the predictability of the bilateral relationship.
Any disruption could prove catastrophic to Canada.
“I’ve made no bones about saying that the greatest damage to the US-Canada relationship is Donald Trump,” said Bruce Heyman, former US ambassador to Canada. “[Trump] has never admitted failure. So when you get down to an election where you either win or lose, he has a hard time accepting the fact that he can lose. He has never used the words ‘defeat’ or ‘loss’ in terms of the election.”
In office, Trump has frequently challenged the norms of the relationship with his country’s closest ally.
He has feuded with Trudeau, calling the prime minister “two-faced”. He has slapped tariffs on aluminium and steel and forced a redrafting of the continent’s free trade agreement. He has called into question Canada’s critical alliances such as Nato, and the missile defence system Norad.
Trump’s administration has also failed to stand up for Canada during diplomatic rows with China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, leaving the country to fend for itself.
“And I think a second term of Donald Trump will be an extreme version of what we have seen in the first,” said Heyman.
While the Trump era may mark a historic low in the relationship, he is not the first US president to oversee strained relations with Canada.
Prime ministers and presidents have often sparred in past, most recently when Canada decided not to join the US in its invasion of Iraq.
Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, who was prime minister for 15 years from the 1960s to the 1980s, likened the relationship to that of a mouse beside a snoring elephant. His clash with President Richard Nixon led to a period of chilled relations.
“It is time for us to recognise … that we have very separate identities; that we have significant differences; and that nobody’s interests are furthered when these realities are obscured,” Nixon told the Canadian parliament in 1972.
But the current damage is clear: a recent poll found that Canadian sentiment towards the US had reached its lowest point in 40 years. Only 29% of residents have a favourable view of their southern neighbour.
And many blame Trump: nearly 66% want Joe Biden to win the election.
But whatever happens on 3 November, tussles over trade and tariffs are likely to persist. A Biden administration would still face domestic pressure to bring manufacturing jobs home and to maintain hardline US positions on commodities such as softwood lumber.
“Because Trump is so unpopular in Canada, people naturally tend to idealise what a Biden presidency would look like,” said Juneau. “But the idea Biden would just erase all of the bilateral trade irritants between the two countries is not true. And I think the Canadian government understands that very well.” More
