Justin Trudeau fails to win assurances over trade tariffs after talks with Donald Trump
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau returned home on Saturday after his meeting with Donald Trump without assurances the president-elect will back away from threatened tariffs on all products from the major American trading partner.
Mr Trump called the talks “productive” but signalled no retreat from a pledge that Canada says unfairly lumps it in with Mexico over the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States.
After the leaders’ hastily arranged dinner on Friday night at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Mr Trudeau spoke of “an excellent conversation” but offered no details.
Mr Trump said in a Truth Social post later on Saturday that they discussed “many important topics that will require both countries to work together to address”.
For issues in need of such co-operation, Mr Trump cited fentanyl and the “drug Crisis that has decimated so many lives as a result of illegal immigration”; fair trade deals “that do not jeopardise American Workers”; and the US trade deficit with its ally to the north.
Mr Trump asserted that the prime minister had made “a commitment to work with us to end this terrible devastation” of American families from fentanyl from China reaching the United States through its neighbours.
The US, he said, “will no longer sit idly by as our citizens become victims to the scourge of this drug epidemic”.
The Republican president-elect has threatened to impose a 25% tax on all products entering the US from Canada and Mexico as one of his first executive orders when he takes office in January.
US customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border.
On immigration, the US Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests at the Mexican border in October alone and 23,721 arrests at the Canadian border between October 2023 and September 2024 — and Canadian officials say they are ready to make new investments in border security.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, after speaking with Mr Trump on the telephone, said on Thursday she was confident a tariff war with Washington would be averted.
At the dinner that was said to last three hours, Mr Trump said he and Mr Trudeau also discussed energy, trade and the Arctic.
An official cited defence, Ukraine, Nato, China, the Middle East, pipelines and the Group of Seven meeting in Canada next year as other issues that arose.
Trump, during his first term as president, once called Trudeau “weak” and “dishonest,” but it was the prime minister who was the first G7 leader to visit Trump since the November 5 election.
Canada is the top export destination for 36 US states. Nearly 2.7 billion US dollars (£2.1 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day.
About 60% of US crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of US electricity imports are from Canada.
Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminium and uranium to the US and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.
Canada is one of the most trade-dependent countries in the world, and 77% of Canada’s exports go to the US.