As Justin Trudeau praised USA ties in his debut remarks at Donald Trump’s White House, the Canadian prime minister’s top diplomat nodded along in the front row with barely a glance at her boss.
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“Make no mistake, at the end of the day, Canada and the USA will always remain each other’s most essential partner”, Trudeau said.
Trudeau, standing behind a podium next to Trump, said Canada will “continue to pursue our policies of openness toward immigration [and] refugees without compromising security”.
Given how volatile Trump has shown he can be, that was always a possibility.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Trudeau said the Canada-United States Council for Advancement of Women Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders reflected their commitment to removing barriers to women’s economic participation and supporting women in the business community.
The two leaders, meeting for the first time, reached more agreement on boosting the already high level of trade between between the countries, which Trudeau said amounted to $2 billion a day in cross-border transactions.
Whereas Trudeau has dramatically increased the intake of Syrian refugees to Canada, Trump paused all Syrian refugees from entering America and attempted to temporarily ban non-Americans from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the country. Trudeau said “diversity is our strength”. “We will be tweaking our outstanding ties with Canada”, Trump said.
President Donald Trump during a joint press conference on Monday managed to avoid questions about concerns that embattled National Security Adviser Michael Flynn misled Trump officials about his communications with Russia’s ambassador.
Transportation Minister Marc Garneau recently told CBS Radio that the meeting between Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau is going to be a “high-level meeting”. But given the important trade relationship between the USA and Canada, the two leaders expect to find common ground during their Monday meeting.
But Mr Trudeau and his ministers have repeatedly hammered home other statistics over the past few weeks that underscore the importance of Canada to American commerce.
There’s no indication Trump views Canada as a problem or an economic adversary but Trump is unpredictable, said Roland Paris, a former senior foreign policy to Trudeau.
“Canada and US will always be crucial partners”.
Now that the relationship is established, the key is to stay focused.
“On NAFTA, going from tearing it up to tweaking it is a huge leap forward”, he said. “Trump made some important distinctions between Canada and Mexico”.
“We’re dealing with someone who has abused the Mexican president and the Australian prime minister”, said Robert Bothwell, a professor at the University of Toronto.
“This is a delicate situation here”.
In the weeks leading up to this meeting, there have been many overtures and meetings at lower levels. “What does the emperor decree?”
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Trudeau says he’s justified in “turning his back” on his pledge, in part because it could hand more power to fringe parties. “We haven’t had anything like this”.
