TORONTO — Two Canadian Cupboard ministers left a gathering at Mar-a-Lago on Friday with out assurances President-elect Donald Trump will again away from threatened tariffs on all merchandise from the foremost American buying and selling accomplice.
The Canadians referred to as the talks “productive” and mentioned there can be additional discussions however one official mentioned the Individuals stay fixated on the U.S. commerce deficit with Canada.
Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and International Minister Mélanie Joly met with Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, in addition to North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s choose to guide the Inside Division.
Trump has threatened to impose 25% tariffs on all Canadian merchandise if Canada doesn’t stem what he calls a stream of migrants and fentanyl into the USA — despite the fact that far fewer of every cross into the U.S. from Canada than from Mexico, which Trump has additionally threatened.
“Minister LeBlanc and Minister Joly had a positive, productive meeting at Mar-a-Lago with Howard Lutnick and Doug Burgum, as a follow-up to the dinner between the Prime Minister and President Trump last month,” mentioned Jean-Sébastien Comeau, a spokesman for LeBlanc.
FIDominic LeBlanc, Minister of Finance, Public Security and Intergovernmental Affairs for Canada, proven in Ottawa Ontario, on Dec. 16.
Justin Tang/The Canadian Press, distributed by the Related Press
Comeau mentioned each ministers outlined the measures in Canada’s billion-dollar plan to extend safety on the border and reiterated “the shared commitment to strengthen border security as well as combat the harm caused by fentanyl to save Canadian and American lives.”
Comeau mentioned Lutnick and Burgum agreed to relay the knowledge to Trump.
A senior Canadian official, nevertheless, mentioned the Individuals stay preoccupied on the U.S. commerce deficit with Canada and need it to shrink. The official spoke on situation of anonymity as they weren’t approved to talk publicly on the matter.
Trump has made a difficulty of the U.S. commerce deficit, erroneously calling it a subsidy.
Canada’s ambassador to Washington, Kirsten Hillman, has mentioned the U.S. had a $75 billion commerce deficit with Canada final 12 months. However she famous a 3rd of what Canada sells into the U.S. are power exports and mentioned there’s a deficit when oil costs are excessive.
About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports and 85% of U.S. electrical energy imports are from Canada. Alberta alone sends 4.3 million barrel s of oil per day to the uswhich tends to eat about 20 million barrels a day.
The Trump transition staff didn’t instantly reply to a message searching for remark.
Additional discussions are anticipated within the coming weeks. Joly can even have dinner with U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham on Friday.
Canada’s Minister of International Affairs Melanie Joly responds to a query throughout a information convention in Ottawa in November.
Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press, distributed by the Related Press
Trump has been trolling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on social media in current weeks by calling him the governor of the 51st state.
Trudeau has indirectly responded, however did put up a hyperlink Thursday to a six-minute video on YouTube from 2010 during which American NBC journalist Tom Brokaw “explains Canada to Americans.”
“Some information about Canada for Americans” Trudeau wrote within the put up on X.
The video, which initially aired in the course of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, explains similarities between the 2 nations, the large buying and selling relationship and the actions of the Canadian navy in World Struggle 2 and Afghanistan.
“In our darkest hours Canada has been with us,” Brokaw says within the video. “In the long history of sovereign neighbors there has never been a relationship as close, productive and peaceful as the U.S. and Canada.”
Trudeau has informed Trump that Individuals would additionally undergo if the president-elect follows by on a plan to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian merchandise.
Practically $3.6 billion Canadian {dollars} ($2.7 billion) value of products and providers cross the border every day. Canada is the highest export vacation spot for 36 U.S. states.
Flows of migrants and seizures of medicine are vastly totally different on the U.S.’s two land borders. U.S. customs brokers seized 43 kilos of fentanyl on the Canadian border over the last fiscal 12 months, in contrast with 21,100 kilos on the Mexican border.
Many of the fentanyl reaching the U.S. — the place it causes about 70,000 overdose deaths yearly — is made 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 southwest border with Mexico between October 2023 and September 2024. That compares to 23,721 encounters on the Canadian border throughout that point.
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