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OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate Friday night, a source confirmed to The Canadian Press.
Trudeau’s plane landed in West Palm Beach, Fla., Friday evening, not far from where Trump’s transition team is based at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
The source, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the events, confirmed Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc was also in attendance.
Trump was seated at the table with Trudeau and LeBlanc, along with the prime minister’s chief of staff, Katie Telford. Also at the table were Doug Burgum, who is Trump’s pick for interior secretary, and his spouse; Howard Lutnick, who will be Trump’s commerce secretary, along with his spouse; and Mike Waltz, the incoming president’s national security adviser, and his spouse.
Burgum is to head up Trump’s new National Energy Council, overseeing a panel on permits, production, regulation and transportation. His appointment was applauded by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who said they would “strengthen energy security, fuel economic growth and showcase the power of cross-border collaboration” together.
Lutnick, who has been tapped to oversee Trump’s tariff agenda, has called tariffs an “amazing tool” to protect the American worker.
Waltz, a three-term congressman from Florida, has been critical of Trudeau on social media over his handling of issues related to China and recently posted that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was going to “send Trudeau packing in 2025” and “start digging Canada out of the progressive mess it’s in.”
The in-person meeting came at the end of a rocky week in which Trump threatened to impose stiff tariffs on all imports from Canada.
Earlier in the day, Trudeau said he believes the president-elect’s tariff threats against Canada and Mexico should be taken seriously.
Trump said on social media on Monday night he would slap a 25 per cent tariff on imports from the U.S.’s closest neighbours unless the two countries stop illegal border crossings and prevent illicit drugs such as fentanyl from entering the U.S.
“One of the things that is really 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,” Trudeau said when speaking with reporters in Queens County, P.E.I., on Friday.
But the prime minister said Canada can get through what is expected to be a tumultuous four years by taking the same approach to working with Trump as it did during his first term as president.
Trudeau said his government started assembling its outreach plan for the next U.S. administration at the start of the year, when they began a “Team Canada” effort by pulling together premiers, business and labour leaders to network with officials and politicians across the U.S.
Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., Kirsten Hillman, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Trade Minister Mary Ng have been leading that effort.
Trudeau activated a similar response during Trump’s first term in the White House, dispatching Canadians of all political stripes to remind American officials that the two nations’ economies are joined at the hip and that trade conflicts would cause blowback for American businesses and consumers as well.
Trudeau said Friday he plans to remind Trump repeatedly that such tariffs would hamper the president’s own political goals as well.
“Our responsibility is to point out in this way, he would be actually not just be harming Canadians,” Trudeau said. “He’d actually be raising prices for American citizens as well and hurting American industry and businesses.”
Trudeau called Trump on Monday night after the social media post and talked up the mutual dependence of the two economies.
The prime minister convened a meeting with the premiers on Wednesday at their request to discuss the incoming U.S. administration’s approach on trade and its concerns about the Canadian border.
During a debate in Parliament this week over Trump’s tariff threat, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland pointed to a long list of industry leaders she has met with since the U.S. election: steel, automotive, pension funds, oil and gas, nuclear, aluminum, electricity, banks and even AI companies.
“This is Team Canada,” she said.
But the last time the Trudeau Liberals assembled such an effort, they were a relatively new majority government. They also had a lot of help from key conservative figures, such as former Conservative leader Rona Ambrose and, importantly, the late former prime minister Brian Mulroney, who personally knew Trump and his former commerce secretary Wilbur Ross.
Asa McKercher, the Hudson Chair in Canada-U.S. Relations at St. Francis Xavier University, said those relationships are now lacking.
“Remember the video of Mr. Mulroney singing to Mr. Trump at his birthday party? We have nothing like that this time,” McKercher said.
“The centre of the Trump administration is Mr. Trump himself, and so having a good in with Mr. Trump is really important.”
While Trudeau and Trump are familiar with each other, there is a question about just how united a front Trudeau can rally this time around. His government has less political capital, as his Liberal party trails behind in public opinion polls and is running out of time before the next election, which has to happen in the next 11 months.
After Trudeau’s meeting with the premiers, Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s office sent a statement to media criticizing Ottawa for being “slow to react” and “stuck on its back foot.” Several premiers have also said Trump’s complaints are legitimate.
“The Team Canada approach is good, but it’s really a Liberal party, Canadian diplomatic kind of thing,” said McKercher.
“This government is on life support. Investors know it, the opposition knows that. The Americans know it, too. Canada doesn’t have a strong hand to play necessarily in terms of building bridges if the Trudeau government’s out in eight months or nine months.”
Sebastian Skamski, a press secretary for Poilievre, said Trudeau’s office had not reached out seeking help from the Conservative leader to network with the incoming U.S. administration.
Freeland was asked whether she would bring Poilievre into the fold at a Nov. 8 news conference, and said she would not speak for him. She said she has, however, spoken with some Conservatives and New Democrats, though she did not name any.
At the same press conference, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said, “The question is whether Pierre Poilievre will want to be partisan and defend Canada’s interests.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 29, 2024.
— with files from Kelly Geraldine Malone in Washington, D.C.
Kyle Duggan, The Canadian Press
