Canadian Cabinet ministers meet with Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary in bid to avoid tariffs
TORONTO — Two Canadian ministers left a meeting at Mar-a-Lago on Friday without assurances that President-elect Donald Trump will withdraw from threatened rates on all products of the major American trading partner.
The Canadians called the talks “productive” and said further discussions would take place, but one official said the Americans remain fixated on the U.S. trade deficit with Canada.
Treasury Secretary Dominic LeBlanc and Secretary of State Mélanie Joly met with Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for Commerce Secretary, and with North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, chosen by Trump to lead the Interior Department.
Trump has threatened to impose 25% tariffs on all Canadian products if Canada doesn’t stem what he calls a flow of migrants and fentanyl into the United States — even though far fewer of each enter the U.S. from Canada than from Mexico , what Trump has done. also threatened.
“Minister LeBlanc and Secretary Joly had a positive, productive meeting at Mar-a-Lago with Howard Lutnick and Doug Burgum, as a continuation of dinner between the prime minister and President Trump last month,” said Jean-Sébastien Comeau, spokesman for LeBlanc.
Comeau said both ministers outlined measures in Canada’s multibillion-dollar plan to enhance security at the border and reiterated “the shared commitment to strengthen border security and combat the harm caused by fentanyl to save Canadian and American lives.”
Comeau said Lutnick and Burgum agreed to pass the information to Trump.
However, a senior Canadian official said Americans are still concerned about the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and want it to shrink. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Trump has brought up the US trade deficit, incorrectly calling it a subsidy.
Canada’s ambassador to Washington, Kirsten Hillman, has said the U.S. had a $75 billion trade deficit with Canada last year. But she noted that a third of what Canada sells to the U.S. is energy exports and said there is a shortage when oil prices are high.
About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports and 85% of U.S. electricity imports come from Canada. Alberta only sends 4.3 million barrels s of oil per day to the US, which typically consumes about 20 million barrels per day.
Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Further discussions are expected in the coming weeks. Joly will also have dinner with U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham on Friday.
Trump has been Trolling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on social media in recent weeks by calling him the governor of the 51st state.
Trudeau did not immediately respond, but on Thursday he posted a link to a six-minute video on YouTube from 2010 in which American NBC journalist Tom Brokaw “explains Canada to Americans.”
“Some information about Canada for Americans,” Trudeau wrote in the post on X.
The video, which originally aired during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, explains similarities between the two countries, the vast trading relationship and the Canadian military’s actions in World War II and Afghanistan.
“In our darkest hours, Canada was with us,” Brokaw says in the video. “In the long history of sovereign neighbors, there has never been a relationship as close, productive and peaceful as the U.S. and Canada.”
Trudeau told it Trump that Americans would also suffer if the president-elect continues with a plans to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products.
Nearly 3.6 billion Canadian dollars ($2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border every day. Canada is the main export destination for 36 US states.
Migrant flows and drug seizures are vastly different at the two U.S. land borders. U.S. Customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border last fiscal year, compared to 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border.
Most of the fentanyl reaching the US – where it causes about 70,000 overdose deaths annually – is created by Mexican drug cartels using precursor chemicals smuggled from Asia.
On the immigration front, U.S. Border Patrol reported 1.53 million encounters with migrants at the southwestern border with Mexico between October 2023 and September 2024. That compares to 23,721 encounters at the Canadian border during that time.