Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau has become the first G7 leader to meet with the US President-elect before his second term as he made a surprise visit to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
The meeting came amid widespread fears in Canada and many other parts of the world that Trump’s promised trade policy of imposing tariffs will cause widespread economic chaos.
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.
Prior to meeting Trump, Trudeau told reporters that he looked forward to having “lots of great conversations” with him 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 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.”
Justin Trudeau
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.
Leaving a Florida hotel in West Palm Beach on Saturday, Trudeau stated that 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.
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.
More to come …
