Trump agricultural secretary to visit P.E.I.

In the wake of the war of words between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at last weekend’s G7 summit, Cardigan MP Lawrence MacAulay will host U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue on Friday.

MacAulay, Canada’s minister of agriculture and agri-foods, said the meeting would allow him to showcase Island hospitality and agriculture.

The two men will discuss agricultural co-operation between the two countries. “He’s going to have an opportunity to look at our situation, to have a look at the potato industry and the lobsters and just see how integrated, in fact, U.S.-Canadian industries are,” MacAulay said on Monday. Perdue’s visit on Friday will include a brief outing on a lobster boat in Cardigan, a tour of a potato farm in Rollo Bay and a visit to the home and farm of MacAulay.

Although the meetings between MacAulay and Perdue were planned in advance, they appear to convey that officials within both countries are quietly working to continue normal relations, despite an increasingly damaging dispute over trade barriers.

According to the Globe and Mail, U.S. Trade representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland held a phone call Sunday evening to talk about the NAFTA negotiations.

The two are expected to meet again on Wednesday. MacAulay said the subject of NAFTA and other bilateral issues would be discussed at the meeting, but that hospitality would also be a significant focus. “We have negotiators at the table and Perdue does, too.

They’ll handle the issues at the table.

What we’ll do is handle the rapport. What I’m doing is making sure he fully understands how we operate in Canada and, in particular, on Prince Edward Island,” MacAulay said.