TORONTO — Two Canadian authorities ministers left a gathering at Mar-a-Lago Friday with no ensures that President-elect Donald Trump will again down from threatened tariffs on all merchandise of America’s prime buying and selling associate.
Canadians referred to as the talks “productive” and mentioned there can be additional discussions, however an official mentioned Americans stay fixated on the U.S. commerce deficit with Canada.
Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly met with Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, in addition to North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Trump’s decide to guide the Interior Department.
Trump has threatened to impose 25% tariffs on all Canadian merchandise if Canada does not stem what he calls a movement of migrants and fentanyl into the United States, regardless that far fewer enter the United States from Canada than from Mexico, which Trump threatened. additionally threatened.
“Minister LeBlanc and Minister Joly had a constructive and productive assembly at Mar-a-Lago with Howard Lutnick and Doug Burgum, following the dinner between the Prime Minister and President Trump final month,” mentioned Jean-Sébastien Comeau, a spokesman for LeBlanc.
Comeau mentioned each ministers outlined measures in Canada’s billion-dollar plan to extend border safety and reiterated “a shared dedication to strengthen border safety and fight the hurt attributable to fentanyl to save lots of lives Canadians and Americans”.
Comeau mentioned Lutnick and Burgum agreed to go the data on to Trump.
A senior Canadian official, nevertheless, mentioned Americans stay involved in regards to the U.S. commerce deficit with Canada and need it to shrink. The official spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of he was not licensed to talk publicly in regards to the matter.
Trump has questioned the U.S. commerce deficit, falsely calling it a subsidy.
Canada’s ambassador to Washington, Kirsten Hillman, mentioned the United States had a commerce deficit with Canada of $75 billion final yr. But he famous {that a} third of what Canada sells to the United States are vitality exports and mentioned there’s a deficit when oil costs are excessive.
About 60% of US crude oil imports and 85% of US electrical energy imports come from Canada. Alberta alone sends 4.3 million barrels of oil per day to the United States, which tends to devour about 20 million barrels per day.
Trump’s transition workforce didn’t instantly reply to a message in search of remark.
Further discussions are anticipated within the coming weeks. Joly can even have dinner with U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham on Friday.
In current weeks, Trump has trolled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on social media as governor of the 51st state.
Trudeau didn’t reply immediately, however posted a hyperlink on Thursday to a six-minute YouTube video from 2010 wherein American NBC journalist Tom Brokaw “explains Canada to Americans.”
“Some details about Canada for Americans,” Trudeau wrote within the X publish.
The video, initially broadcast throughout the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, explains the similarities between the 2 international locations, the huge commerce relationship and the Canadian army’s actions in World War II and Afghanistan.
“In our darkest moments, Canada was with us,” Brokaw says within the video. “In the lengthy historical past of sovereign neighbors there has by no means been a relationship as shut, productive and peaceable as that between the United States and Canada.”
Trudeau instructed Trump that Americans would additionally undergo if the president-elect pushes ahead with a plan to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian merchandise.
Every day, items and companies value practically C$3.6 billion ($2.7 billion) cross the border. Canada is the highest export vacation spot for 36 US states.
Migrant flows and drug seizures are very completely different between the 2 US land borders. U.S. Customs brokers seized 43 kilos of fentanyl on the Canadian border over the past fiscal yr, in comparison with 21,100 kilos on the Mexican border.
Most of the fentanyl that comes into the United States — the place it causes about 70,000 overdose deaths annually — is produced by Mexican drug cartels utilizing precursor chemical compounds smuggled from Asia.
On immigration, the U.S. Border Patrol reported 1.53 million encounters with migrants on the southwestern border with Mexico between October 2023 and September 2024. That compares with 23,721 encounters on the Canadian border throughout that interval.
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