Trudeau, premiers to meet Wednesday after Trump trade threat

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the country’s premiers will hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the threat of steep new U.S. tariffs.

The meeting will be held virtually at 5 p.m., the Prime Minister’s Office said.

On Monday night, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose a 25 per cent import tariff on goods coming from Canada and Mexico the day he takes office in January.

“On Jan. 20, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25 per cent tariff on all products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

The post, which came just as Canadian cabinet ministers were holding a meeting of the restored Canada-U. S. relations committee in Ottawa, promises to keep the tariffs in place until Canada and Mexico stop illegal border crossings and prevent drugs like fentanyl from entering the U.S.

Trudeau later had a 10-minute call with Trump, which the prime minister described as positive.

“We obviously talked about laying out the facts, talking about how the intense and effective connections between our two countries flow back and forth. We talked about some of the challenges that we can work on together,” Trudeau said on his way into the weekly cabinet meeting Tuesday morning.

“It was a good call. This is something we can do, laying out the facts in constructive ways. This is a relationship we know takes a certain amount of working on and that’s what we’ll do.”

Before Trump’s post on Monday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford had asked for an urgent meeting between the premiers and Trudeau to prepare for the new administration.

That request took on new urgency following Trump’s post.

Trudeau spoke by phone on Monday with Ford, who chairs the Council of the Federation, and other premiers including Quebec Premier François Legault.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Ford called the tariff threats serious and unfounded.

But if Trump follows through on the threat, Canada would have no choice but to retaliate, Ford said.

“I found his comments unfair. I found them insulting. It’s like a family member stabbing you right in the heart,” he said in Toronto.

“To compare us to Mexico is the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard from our friends and closest allies, the United States of America.”

Ford said Trudeau needs to do better on border security, and give more resources to the Canada Border Services Agency to secure the borders and address the flow of drugs.

“One ounce of any illegal drug is one ounce too many going back and forth across the border,” he said.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller suggested Tuesday the government is looking at what additional resources are needed at the border.

U.S. border statistics suggest illegal drug seizures and encounters with people who are not admissible to the United States at the Canadian border pale in comparison to those at the Mexico border, though Miller said Tuesday Canada still takes the problem seriously.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe posted on social media such tariffs would be “harmful to our Saskatchewan export-based economy” and that his government is talking with the incoming administration and working with the federal government and premiers to “ensure this does not happen.” He said Canadians “can all benefit from additional border security,” since that’s the main issue Trump is raising.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre charged Tuesday that the Trudeau government has been caught flat footed by Trump’s tariff announcement, and called for an emergency debate in the House of Commons and for Trudeau to take measures to bolster the economy in the face of the new threat.

Poilievre pitched familiar Conservative planks, such as removing the carbon tax, cancelling an energy-sector emissions cap, work to “rebuild” the military and “secure our borders.” “What we actually need to do is stand up for our economy by axing taxes, unleashing free enterprise, having a massive boom in our energy and resource production and standing up for our country against unfair tariffs abroad,” he said.

“That is a real plan to protect our economy and our security, and put Canada first.”

Poilievre said he would be willing to retaliate against the U.S. “if necessary.”

The Trudeau government has been preparing for the possibility of another Trump presidency for nearly a year, reigniting their previous effort.

“One of the really important things is that we be all pulling together on this. The Team Canada approach is what works,” Trudeau said.

Cabinet ministers and provincial officials have been dispatched south of the border to meet with people around Trump who could influence U.S. policy. That included governors, business leaders, unions and members of Congress.

The week Trump was re-elected, Trudeau also restored the Canada-U.S. relations cabinet committee that had been dormant since Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement Monday night that Canada places “the highest priority on border security and the integrity of our shared border.”

She also stressed that cross-border trade between the two countries is significant, noting in particular that 60 per cent of U.S. crude oil imports came from Canada last year.

A 25 per cent tariff on those imports is expected to immediately jack up gas prices for American consumers.

Dennis Darby, president of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters trade association, said in a statement the tariffs would have a “devastating impact on manufacturers, workers and consumers” on both sides of the border, and that he’s working with the government to make sure the incoming Trump administration “fully understand the consequences.”

“This is truly a lose-lose proposition,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 26, 2024.

Kyle Duggan, Nick Murray and David Baxter, The Canadian Press