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OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Palm Beach, Fla., Friday dining with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and several White House cabinet nominees for the incoming administration.
Trudeau and Trump met for a “wide-ranging dinner” lasting three hours that evening at the U.S. president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago estate, two sources have confirmed to National Post.
The prime minister brought with him his chief of staff Katie Telford and Public Safety Minister Dominic Leblanc, who is responsible for border security, an issue that Trump has criticized Canada about.
Trump brought along his pick for interior secretary, Gov. Doug Burgum, and Mike Waltz, his pick for national security advisor, with their wives, the source said.
Also joining was Howard Lutnick, the president-elect’s pick for commerce secretary, and his wife.
It marked Trudeau’s first meeting with Trump since his re-election earlier this month and just days after Trump threatened to impose a 25-per-cent tariff on goods entering from Canada and Mexico unless his concerns about border security were fixed.
Trudeau is the first G7 leader to meet with the president-elect since his victory on Nov.6.
According to a source, topics of discussion at dinner included trade, border security, the fentanyl crisis, defence, China, energy and the upcoming G7 that Canada will be hosting next year. The source said there was also “lots of social talk.”
Trump posted a picture to his social media platform, Truth Social, late Friday evening of the dinner with Trudeau, which he qualified as an “interesting special guest.”
On Saturday, he made a second post where he said it was a “very productive” meeting with Trudeau.
“We discussed many important topics that will require both countries to work together to address, like the fentanyl and drug crisis that has decimated so many lives as a of result of illegal immigration, fair trade deals that do not jeopardize American workers and the massive trade deficit the U.S. has with Canada,” the president-elect wrote.
“I made it very clear that the United States will no longer sit idly by as our citizens become victims to the scourge of this drug epidemic, caused mainly by the drug cartels and fentanyl pouring in from China. Too much death and hardship! Prime Minister Trudeau has made a commitment to work with us to end this terrible devastation of U.S. families.”
They also discussed energy, trade and the Arctic, Trump said.
The Prime Minister’s Office provided no advance notice about the meeting with Trump and has provided no official confirmation. The first indications that Trudeau was travelling to Florida came from observations Friday afternoon of the flight path the prime minister’s plane.
Trudeau had been in Prince Edward Island earlier on Friday to make an announcement about a school lunch program, where he defended his government’s handling of Trump’s first term in office, as Canada faces a fresh round of tariff threats.
“We were able to protect great jobs in Canada by working with President Trump on renegotiating (the North American Free Trade Agreement) in ways that secured our economy for decades to come,” he told reporters.
“We rolled up our sleeves and we created growth across both sides of the border.”
The Liberals would continue to work “constructively and responsibility for the win-win that is the Canada-U.S. relationship,” said Trudeau.
He also added: “I look forward to having lots of great conversations with president-elect Trump as we move forward on standing up for good jobs on both sides of the border.”
Since Trump’s re-election, Trudeau and his cabinet ministers have sought to reassure Canadians and businesses they are prepared to handle a second Trump presidency, after Trump’s first term forced the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and for a time saw tariffs slapped on Canadian steel and aluminum.
Earlier this week, Trump raised the threat of tariffs on Canadian imports, triggering a fresh wave of concern from industry leaders and premiers, unless he sees action on curbing the flow of migrants and fentanyl into the United States, prompting a call between Trudeau and Trump.
The prime minister on Tuesday described that conversation as a “good call,” saying they discussed “laying out the facts” and also “(talked) about how the intense and effective connections between our two countries flow back and forth,” as well as some of the “challenges” they face.
The pair also spoke after Trump’s re-election. He is set to take office in January.
— With a file from Catherine Levesque.
National Post
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