Blitz Bureau
TORONTO: Two Canadian Cabinet ministers left a meeting at Mar-a-Lago without assurances President-elect Donald Trump will back away from threatened tariffs on all products from the major American trading partner, reported AP.
The Canadians called the talks “productive” and said there would be further discussions but one official said the Americans remain fixated on the US trade deficit with Canada. Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly met with Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, as well as North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department.
Trump has threatened to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian products if Canada does not stem what he calls a flow of migrants and fentanyl into the United States – even though far fewer of each cross into the US from Canada than from Mexico, which Trump has also 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,” said Jean-Sébastien Comeau, a spokesman for LeBlanc.
Comeau said both ministers outlined the measures in Canada’s billion-dollar plan to increase security at 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.”
Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s Ambassador to Washington, has said the US had a $75 billion trade deficit with Canada last year. But she noted a third of what Canada sells into the US are energy exports and said there is a deficit when oil prices are high.
