No commitment from Trump team to drop tariff threat after meeting with Joly, LeBlanc in Florida

Two of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s top cabinet ministers met Friday with two of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks in an attempt to stave off the looming prospect of tariffs on Canadian exports.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc flew to Florida to brief the presidential transition team on the government’s plan for improving border security and to make the case that Trump’s threat of steep tariffs on all Canadian exports to the U.S. would damage both countries’ economies.

Trump threatened last month to slap a 25 per cent tariff on all goods entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico starting on Jan. 20, his inauguration day, unless the countries curb the flow of drugs and migrants across their borders.

Joly and LeBlanc met Friday morning with Trump’s nominee for secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick, and his pick for secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum, at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort, where his transition team is headquartered.  

“Both ministers outlined the measures in Canada’s border plan and reiterated the shared commitment to strengthen border security as well as combat the harm caused by fentanyl to save Canadian and American lives,” LeBlanc’s spokesperson Jean-Sébastien Comeau said in an email to CBC News.

While the ministers did not obtain a commitment to hold off on the tariffs, Comeau said the meeting was “productive” and positive, and that discussions would continue in the coming weeks.

CBC News requested interviews Friday with Joly and LeBlanc, but they were not available.

The Trudeau government has been scrambling for the past month to mount a response to the tariff threat, which has until now included the prime minister and Leblanc, then-minister of public safety, flying to Mar-a-Lago for a dinner meeting with Trump and unveiling a $1.3-billion suite of measures meant to disrupt the flow of fentanyl and strengthen 24/7 surveillance of the border. 

Meanwhile, Trump has followed up with a succession of Canada-focused social media posts, including taunting Trudeau as “governor,” suggesting Canadians would be better off living in the 51st state, and claiming he’d urged former hockey star Wayne Gretzky to “run for prime minister.” 

Trudeau is currently in British Columbia on Christmas vacation, amid mounting questions about his leadership and an imminent threat that his government could fall next month in a non-confidence vote.     

CBC News asked Trump’s transition team for comment on Friday’s meetings but did not receive a response. 

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Lutnick, CEO of Wall Street financial services giant Cantor Fitzgerald, was a major donor to Trump’s campaign. The president-elect said Lutnick “will lead our tariff and trade agenda” when announcing his nomination as secretary of commerce.

Trump’s trade deficit concerns raised in meeting: source 

Trump’s frustrations about the U.S. trade deficit with Canada came up at the meeting, a senior Canadian government source told CBC News.

Trump has repeatedly inaccurately characterized the trade deficit — about $75 billion US in 2023 — as the U.S. subsidizing the Canadian economy.

Economists say the trade deficit is almost entirely because of Canada’s large petroleum exports. The U.S. imported more crude oil from Canada in 2023 than from all other countries combined, according to data posted by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.  

The source said it will be tricky for Canada to deal with Trump’s trade deficit concerns. 

The president-elect has signalled he wants to renegotiate the terms of the tripartite trade agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, a deal struck during Trump’s first term in office.  

The likely key objective for LeBlanc and Joly at the Mar-a-Lago meeting was to figure out if Canada’s planned border measures will be enough to dissuade Trump from go through with his tariff threat, said Lori Turnbull, a political science professor at Dalhousie University.

“I’m not sure if it’s realistic that they’re going to get an answer like that today,” Turnbull told CBC News Network’s Natasha Fatah in an interview Friday.

“But I think the point is to try to move toward that goal and to see what else might need to be done,” Turnbull said. 

“I think more broadly, it’s about relationship-building. It’s about being there, establishing a conversation, keeping that line of communication open and having the conversation with people who are not Trump.” 

Ahead of the meeting, LeBlanc’s spokesperson had said that the ministers intended “to focus on Canada’s efforts to combat fentanyl trafficking and illegal migration and the measures outlined in Canada’s border plan, as well as the negative impacts that the imposition of 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods would have on both Canada and the United States.”

LeBlanc had previously said he would meet Trump’s border czar Tom Homan “after Christmas” to present Canada’s proposed plan to secure the shared border. However, LeBlanc did not meet Homan on Friday.