The Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeaumet this Friday in Florida with the President-elect of the United States, Donald Trumpa few days after the Republican threatened to impose on his North American partners a 25% surcharge on all imported goods.
Although the visit was not on the Prime Minister’s official agenda and the President-elect had not confirmed the meeting, press reports confirmed Trudeau’s arrival at Palm Beach International Airport ( Florida), near Trump’s Mar-a-Lake residence.
Trudeau dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago Friday evening. The Minister of Public Security, Dominic LeBlanc, accompanied the Prime Minister, according to sources cited by the newspaper. New York Times.
The meeting takes place after the election of the President of the United States. put the governments of Mexico and Canada on alert after announcing that will apply a 25% customs duty to all goods imported from these two countriesas well as an additional 10% surcharge on Chinese goods, until the two – who are their main trading partners – stop the arrival of illegal immigration and drugs.
The visit to Mar-a-Lago on Friday, which he reported Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC, in English), is intended as a direct effort by Trudeau to show that he has a plan to address Trump’s border concerns and prevent tariffs from being implemented.
In the morning, the prime minister told the Canadian press that he and Trump “will work together to address some of the concerns” of the Republican and respond to these problems.
The prime minister also warned that what is really “important to understand” is that when Trump makes such statements, “he plans to implement them. There is no doubt about that.”
Trudeau and the President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaumreacted to the announcement by warning Trump that these tariffs would cause enormous damage to the economy of the entire region.
The Canadian Prime Minister met Wednesday evening with the heads of government of the 11 provinces of this country to outline a common strategy in the face of the threat from the American president-elect.
Trudeau emphasized during this meeting that “the number of migrants attempting to travel from Canada to the United States is a fraction of those attempting to travel from Mexico to the United States“, according to his office in a press release.
Canada’s strategy so far has been to dissociate itself from Mexico as much as possible and emphasize that the U.S. northern border is secure in order to prevent Trump from carrying out his threat and imposing tariffs that , according to economists, would plunge the country into a recession.
