Canada’s ambassador to the United States offered more details over the weekend about a dinner meeting between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President-elect Donald Trump, following a tariff threat.
The prime minister’s meeting on Nov. 29 at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, took place after Trump warned that he would impose a 25 percent tariff on Canadian goods if the country failed to secure the U.S. northern border.
Ambassador Kirsten Hillman said that she sat next to the two leaders at the Mar-a-Lago dinner. She said that the Canadian leader had requested an in-person meeting with the president-elect, who invited him to dinner to discuss trade and border issues.
During the conversation, Trudeau and Canadian officials stressed that the U.S.–Canada border situation differs from the U.S.–Mexico border. Trump has also threatened to levy a 25 percent tariff on Mexico if it fails to curb drug trafficking and illegal immigration.
“The message that our border is so vastly different than the Mexican border was really understood,” Hillman said.
Unlike Mexico, she said, there is essentially zero trafficking of fentanyl from Canada to the United States. She added there are seizures but authorities say those are personal use seizures and not criminal trafficking. She said that 99.8 percent of the fentanyl seized by U.S. authorities in the United States comes via Mexico.
“Also with respect to individuals, illegal individuals crossing illegally, Canada last year was less than 1 percent, 0.6 percent were of total interceptions from Canada,” she said.
Hillman said that Canada is ready to make new investments in border security and added that there are more plans for more helicopters, drones, and law enforcement personnel to secure the border.
The United States is by far the largest trading partner with Canada, meaning that tariffs could be devastating for the country’s economy. At more than 5,500 miles in length, the border separating the United States and Canada is the longest in the world.
“We are one tenth the size of the United States so a balanced trade deal would mean per capita we are buying 10 times more from the U.S. than they are buying from us. If that’s his metric we will certainly engage on that,” Hillman said.
Describing the meeting, Hillman said Trudeau and Trump “get along well,” adding that the president-elect told the prime minister he is a fan of Canadian singer Celine Dion.
“I don’t think it could have been better to be frank. Okay, I’ll take that back, I’ll change that. If he obviously said there would be no tariffs that would have been better but there was no realistic expectation of that,” she added.
Trudeau told reporters after their meeting in West Palm Beach that he had an “excellent conversation” with Trump, although he did not provide further details.
Canadian Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who also sat at the table with Trump and Trudeau, said that the two talked about new security measures such as drones and personnel.
“We’re going to look to procure, for example, additional drones, additional police helicopters, we’re going to redeploy personnel ... we believe that the border is secure,” he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Aside from Mexico and Canada, the president-elect also warned he would levy an additional 10 percent tariff against China if the Chinese communist regime fails to curb the production of fentanyl precursors that ultimately make their way into the United States via the southern border.
