President-elect Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau covered a long menu of topics from tariffs to China during their roughly three hour dinner at Mar-a-Lago, it emerged Saturday
Trudeau called the surprise meeting at Trump’s Palm Beach golf club an “excellent conversation” but didn’t elaborate as he left a hotel, according to CNN.
The face-to-face came days after Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican exports to the United States, if the neighboring countries don’t act to curb the flows of illegal fentanyl and migrants entering the United States.
The pair discussed the tariffs, as well as NATO, Ukraine, oil pipeline projects and icebreakers, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
The mini-summit came at Trudeau’s suggestion, according to the Toronto Star.
Trump was also pleased with the conversation, posting to Truth Social Saturday that it had been a “very productive meeting.”
The two leaders “discussed many important topics that will require both Countries to work together,” he wrote, adding, “I made it very clear that the United States will no longer sit idly by as our Citizens become victims to the scourge of this Drug Epidemic, caused mainly by the Drug Cartels, and Fentanyl pouring in from China.
“Too much death and hardship! Prime Minister Trudeau has made a commitment to work with us to end this terrible devastation of U.S. Families,” Trump said in the post.
In conversations with Trump, Trudeau has been keen to point out that the number of illegal migrants coming into the United States from Canada is far lower than Mexico, while his top officials have loudly voiced their cooperation with U.S. authorities on the fentanyl crisis.
A photo of the gathering showed the two leaders flanked by members of Trump’s incoming administration.
Those at the table included Mike Waltz, Trump’s pick for national security adviser; Secretary of the Interior nominee Doug Burgum; Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick, and Pennsylvania Sen-elect Dave McCormick.
Trudeau was joined by Canadian Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc and his chief of staff, Katie Telford.
“One of the things that is really important to understand is that Donald Trump, when he makes statements like that, he plans on carrying them out. There’s no question about it,” Trudeau told reporters in a news conference Friday morning, according to Bloomberg.
“Our responsibility is to point out that in this way he would be actually not just be harming Canadians, who work so well with the United States; he’d actually be raising prices for American citizens as well and hurting American industry and businesses.”
