Election 2024

Trump lauds 'productive' meeting with Trudeau amid tension over tariffs



President-elect Trump confirmed his Friday meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, calling the conversation “productive.”

“I just had a very productive meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, where we discussed many important topics that will require both Countries to work together to address, like the Fentanyl and Drug Crisis that has decimated so many lives as a result of Illegal Immigration, Fair Trade Deals that do not jeopardize American Workers, and the massive Trade Deficit the U.S. has with Canada,” he wrote Saturday on Truth Social.

“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,” he continued. “Too much death and hardship!”

Trump added that Trudeau made a commitment to work with the U.S. to “end this terrible devastation of U.S. Families.” Other topics discussed, per the post, were energy, trade and the Arctic.

“All are vital issues that I will be addressing on my first days back in Office, and before,” he concluded in the post.

The Canadian leader thanked Trump for the visit in a post on social platform X Saturday afternoon.

“Thanks for dinner last night, President Trump. I look forward to the work we can do together, again,” Trudeau wrote, paired with a photo of the two.

The two also spoke on Tuesday, a day after Trump threatened a 25 percent tariff on goods imported from Canada and Mexico, as well as a steeper tariff on products coming from China, in an effort to crack down on the movement of migrants and drugs, like fentanyl, into the U.S.

Trudeau said the conversation was “good” after the phone call, signaling optimism when it comes to working with the president-elect when he’s inaugurated in January.

“This is something that we can do, laying out the facts, moving forward in constructive ways,” the prime minister said at the time. “This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on, and that’s what we’ll do.”

Ahead of his trip to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trudeau said he would make sure Canada remained on the “right track.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also spoke with Trump following his tariff threat. While she too said the conversation was “productive,” she pushed back earlier this week on the president-elect’s claim that Mexico agreed to shut its border with the U.S.

“We reiterate that Mexico’s position is not to close borders but to build bridges between governments and between peoples,” she wrote late Wednesday on X.

Sheinbaum has also threatened to hit the incoming Trump administration with her own tariffs if his threat is executed.



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