Trump’s tariff terror: Buffeted Trudeau rushes to grease the US President-elect
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: With Donald Trump’s tariff terror looming on Canada (and China and Mexico, too), a panicked Canadian Prime Minister Justine Trudeau rushed to meet the US President-elect on Friday to enter his good books before his inauguration in January 2025.
The buffeted Canadian PM—who, Trump ally Elon Musk has declared, is sure to lose parliamentary elections in 2025—is worried over the fallout of any tariff hike by Washington on Canadian exports to the US, particularly in an election year.
Already, the Khalistan-friendly Trudeau regime’s popularity rating in Canada has plummeted to less than 20 percent, according to an October survey. He is trying to stitch together another winning combination of the Liberals but Trump’s tariff threats have thrown a spanner in his political strategy.
That’s why PM Trudeau rushed to Florida, using the alibi of Thanksgiving Day, to meet Trump as Canada seeks to head off the President-elect’s threat to impose a 25 percent tariff on Canadian goods, the media reported on Saturday.
Trudeau landed at Palm Beach International Airport on Friday evening to visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
The two spoke by phone earlier in the week after Trump announced that, upon taking office in January, he would slap an across-the-board tariff on all products entering the US from Mexico and Canada.
The trip was not included on Trudeau’s public itinerary for Friday.
Trump, who is putting together his team ahead of the inauguration, has been at his Mar-a-Lago estate meeting with his transition officials.
Accompanied by Dominic LeBlanc, the Canadian minister in charge of border security, Trudeau is reported to be the first G7 leader to visit the US President-elect since the November 5 election.
The Canadian PM has often underscored that the two countries were able to successfully renegotiate a major trade pact during Trump’s first term (2017-21), though the relationship between the two leaders has occasionally been rocky.
On Friday, speaking at an event in Prince Edward Island, Trudeau said the two countries “rolled up our sleeves and were able to create jobs on both sides of the border.”
He said he looked forward to having many “great” conversations with Trump.
His Florida visit is the latest move by Canada as it seeks to avoid the hefty tariffs, which could have wide-reaching economic impacts in an already weakening economy.
Trudeau said on Friday that the tariff burden would not just harm Canadians but also raise prices for Americans and hurt that country’s economy.
Canada is one of America’s largest trading partners and it sends about 75 percent of its total exports to the US. The two countries also share deeply integrated supply chains.
After the phone call with Trump, Trudeau held an emergency meeting on Wednesday with the leaders of Canada’s provinces and territories over how to manage the US-Canada relationship. He is trying to present a united “Team Canada” approach to working with the US to make the case against the levy.
