Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet with Donald Trump next week as the president’s protectionist push threatens $541 billion in annual trade between Canada and the U.S.
Trudeau will visit Washington on Monday, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office. The visit is expected to be a far cry from the warm state dinner thrown by Barack Obama for the Canadian a year earlier — a close relationship Trudeau later termed “dudeplomacy.”
On this visit, thorns loom large. The U.S. pledge to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement prompted Trudeau to shuffle his cabinet to mount a wide-reaching lobbying effort to preach the gospel of Canadian trade. A Trump ally sought to reassure Canada in January that its trade ties — roughly in balance — were not the primary target, and Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland has since found a receptive ear in Washington.
“What has struck me is the kind of all-hands-on-deck approach to the Trump presidency,” said Fen Hampson, professor of international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa. “The message is, quite clearly, we’re going to work with this administration, we’re going to work with whomever is in the White House, because it is Canada’s interest to do so.”
Freeland visited the U.S. capital this week, meeting Secretary of state Rex Tillerson and House Speaker Paul Ryan, among others. She told reporters afterward Canada won’t shy away from a fight and is “strongly opposed” to new tariffs, but that she was “pushing on an open door” with the new administration.
Many industries are at stake. Any NAFTA renegotiation could upend the auto sector, with its supply chains deeply interwoven through the U.S. and Mexico. Canada is the top supplier of foreign oil the U.S. and the countries are already at odds over softwood lumber. Canada’s ambassador to Washington, David MacNaughton, has said his goal is to avoid becoming “collateral damage” in Trump’s trade fight.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau arrived as Freeland’s meetings ended, speaking about Canada-U.S. ties and meeting with U.S. lawmakers. Before them Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan met with his counterpart at the Pentagon, as Canada grapples with Trump’s push for North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies to hike military spending.