Justin Trudeau Visits Trump At Mar-a-lago

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived at Mar-a-Lago for an unannounced visit with Donald Trump after the president-elect threatened Canada with a hefty tariff, according to two people familiar with the meeting granted anonymity to discuss the plans.

He is the first G7 leader to visit the resort since the U.S. election. Trudeau is accompanied by Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc who is in charge of border security.

Trudeau headed to Florida after an unrelated press conference in the Prince Edward Island province, in which he touted his relationship with Trump. Trudeau said he “looks forward” to “lots of great conversations” with him.

“Ultimately, it is through lots of constructive, real conversations with President Trump that I’m going to have that will keep us moving forward on the right track for all Canadians,” he said Friday, although he did not indicate a meeting was imminent.

The president-elect got all of Canada’s attention on Monday when he announced on Truth Social that his Day 1 to-do list included slapping 25 percent tariffs on Canada. Trump conditioned the tariffs on Canada securing its border with the United States.

“When he makes statements like that, he plans on carrying them out,” Trudeau said Friday morning.

“He would be actually not just harming Canadians who work so well with the United States,” the prime minister continued. “He [would] actually be raising prices for American citizens as well, and hurting American industry and businesses.”

It’s a message that Trudeau’s top ministers spent the past year sharing with anyone south of the border who’d listen.

Trudeau has a complicated relationship with the president-elect.

During Trump’s first term, the prime minister and his team successfully renegotiated NAFTA and maintained something of a working relationship with the White House. But Trump has also called Trudeau “two-faced” and a “far-left lunatic.”

In the hours after Trump’s Truth Social message posted on Monday, the prime minister managed to get the incoming president on the horn — a point his ministers kept coming back to this week in the panic that the tariff threat created.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland insisted that the Liberals could be trusted to deal with Trump since they’d done it before.

On Wednesday, she championed Trudeau’s record.

“He was an effective partner for Barack Obama. He was an effective partner for President Trump. He was an effective partner for President Biden, who is still president,” she said. “I have every confidence that he will be absolutely effective in dealing with President-elect Trump.”