Support at home helps Trudeau stay the course amid threats from Trump
Canadian prime minister to pursue revised NAFTA
OTTAWA, Ontario — If Donald Trump was counting on Justin Trudeau to bend to U.S. trade demands after a series of verbal attacks on the Canadian prime minister, it’s not working.
Trudeau is staying out of the fray, trying to forge ahead on a revised North American Free Trade Agreement as his country and key allies rally around him in the face of unprecedented criticism from his neighbor and chief trading partner.
“From Day One, we have said that we expected moments of drama and that we would keep calm and carry on throughout those moments,” Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said Tuesday in Ottawa. She will visit Washington beginning Wednesday, speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and possibly meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.
U.S.-Canadian relations have rarely been more strained. Trudeau’s closing news conference at the Group of Seven leaders’ summit in Quebec last weekend sparked reactions from the Trump administration after the prime minister said the U.S. decision to impose tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum on national security grounds was “insulting.”
Though Trudeau had made these comments many times before, Trump and his advisers quickly responded. The president tweeted from Air Force One that Trudeau was “dishonest” and weak. His advisers went further, with White House trade adviser Peter Navarro saying there was a “special place in hell” for leaders like Trudeau who negotiate with Trump in bad faith. Navarro apologized Tuesday, saying he used language that was “inappropriate.”
Trump took another poke at Trudeau from Singapore after his summit on North Korea. “I have a good relationship with Justin Trudeau — I really did, other than he had a news conference that he had because he assumed I was in an airplane,” the U.S. president told a news conference. “He learned. That’s going to cost a lot of money for the people of Canada.”
Another thing buoying Trudeau has been the near-universal Canadian response to Trump’s comments.