Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has flown to Florida to meet with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Global News has learned.
The trip comes days after Trump threatened to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico unless the two countries stop migrants and illegal drugs from crossing the border.
Flight data showed the plane regularly used by the prime minister for travel landed in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Friday evening, which is the closest airport to Mar-a-Lago.
Global News has learned Trudeau is staying overnight in West Palm Beach and will fly back to Canada on Saturday morning. He is not staying at Mar-a-Lago.
Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc is also in attendance, Global News has also learned.
The Prime Minister’s Office did not publicly confirm the meeting with Trump and it did not appear on Trudeau’s itinerary for Friday.
Trudeau and Trump spoke on the phone Monday evening after the U.S. president-elect made the tariff threat on social media.
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The prime minister also convened an emergency meeting with the country’s premiers at their request on Wednesday to talk about the tariffs.
Following the meeting, the premiers and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said they had agreed on a “unified” approach to addressing the issue, including economic risks and the border security concerns Trump raised.
Freeland and LeBlanc, who co-chair the cabinet committee on U.S.-Canada relations that was revived after Trump’s electoral victory, said there were opportunities to work with the U.S. on border security and concerns about China.
At a press conference in Prince Edward Island earlier Friday, Trudeau says he believes Trump’s tariff threats should be taken seriously.
“One of the things that is really important to understand is that Donald Trump, when he makes statements like that, he plans on carrying them out,” Trudeau told reporters in Mount Stewart, Prince Edward Island. “There’s no question about it.
“Our responsibility is to point out that, in this way, he would be actually not just be harming Canadians, who work so well with the United States, he’d actually be raising prices for American citizens as well and hurting American industry and businesses.”
—With files from Global’s Saba Aziz and the Canadian Press
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