Trump's tariff threat is testing both Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre

The coming of winter in Ottawa could persuade even the most patriotic Canadian to think about following the geese south. But it was the threat of economic havoc that sent the prime minister to Florida on Friday to meet Donald Trump at the president-elect's private club and personal palace.

They reportedly dined on steak and mashed potatoes and discussed matters of state. Everyone seems to have gotten on well enough. But Trump apparently was not moved to completely retract his illogical threat to impose a 25-per-cent tariff on all goods imported into the United States from Canada.

"While I'm a critic of Mr. Trudeau's, I did feel badly that he went in with such a position of weakness," Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said on Sunday, barely feigning empathy. "Normally when a prime minister goes to the United States to meet a president, they're looking to make gains. What gains did we hear from Mr. Trudeau? None. He's just trying to limit losses."

Poilievre likes to note that, when Stephen Harper was prime minister, the United States and Canada resolved a dispute over softwood lumber and Canada was later granted some exemptions to 'Buy American' policies.

Strangely missing from Poilievre's narrative is any mention of Keystone XL, the pipeline Harper couldn't convince his American counterpart to approve (Harper had insisted that approving the pipeline was a "no brainer").

It's also worth noting that Harper was dealing with George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Both Donald Trump's biggest fans and greatest detractors would surely agree that the president-elect is something else entirely. 

The singular nature of the incoming president, and the threats and worries that come with him, are now testing both Trudeau and Poilievre, who are responding in their own particular ways.

Trudeau flies south

Trudeau's unannounced flight to Florida on Friday was both dramatic and, in hindsight, understandable. While Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has worried aloud about Trump's feelings toward Trudeau, it's not obvious that personal relations between the prime minister and the president-elect are fatally fraught. And the move for a face-to-face meeting is in keeping with how Trudeau's government dealt with the first Trump presidency.

Within a month of the presidential election in 2016, Chrystia Freeland (who would become foreign affairs minister in January 2017) and Trudeau's chief of staff Katie Telford were in New York to meet with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. They made three more trips to New York before Trump was inaugurated to meet different members of the incoming administration.

Several of those advisers — Kushner, Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, Wilbur Ross — have moved on, but Trump remains and he's apparently still willing to let Trudeau sup at his table. Flying down to Florida might even flatter the president-elect. (It might also send the message to Canadians that Trudeau, whatever his political challenges, is in charge of the Canadian response.)

WATCH: Poilievre says he would retaliate against Trump's threatened tariffs 'if necessary'   

Poilievre would retaliate against Trump's tariff threat 'if necessary'

16 days ago

Duration 0:52

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he would retaliate 'if necessary' against Donald Trump’s threat of imposing a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods. When asked if Canada should have less reliance on America as a trading partner, Poilievre said it was a nice idea but one that is unrealistic.

As Poilievre noted, the meeting did not produce a retraction of the social media post that so far accounts entirely for Trump's threat to impose a 25-per-cent tariff on Canadian products. During question period on Monday, Conservative MP Brad Redekopp said Trudeau had gone to Florida to "kiss the ring" but "returned with absolutely nothing."

Snide comments aside, that is the risk Trudeau faces — that acts of personal outreach and goodwill fail to persuade the American president to abandon an economically damaging course of action.

But would Poilievre have refused to fly to Florida unless he was guaranteed a resolution? Does the Conservative leader imagine he would have said something at that table that would have persuaded the president-elect to stand down?

After describing Trump's threat of tariffs as "unjustified" last week, Poilievre suggested on Sunday that the president-elect was on to something. Trudeau is a "weak leader" who has "lost control of our border," Poilievre said. The Conservative leader stood behind a placard that said, "Fix our broken border."

Trump seems particularly concerned about fentanyl entering the United States and Poilievre took the opportunity to point out that American seizures of the drug at the Canada-U.S. border "tripled" between 2023 and 2024.

Measured by doses, Poilievre isn't wrong. According to official data, 839,000 doses were seized in the last fiscal year, up from 239,000 in the previous year. But Poilievre neglected to mention that U.S. officials apprehended a total of 1.1 billion doses last year at all borders — meaning the northern border accounted for 0.08 per cent of all seizures.

Of course, it's in Poilievre's personal interest to criticize Trudeau and the policies of his government. And if Canadian officials can do more to help the United States monitor its northern border (the Trudeau government says it is looking into dispatching helicopters and drones), it's perhaps worth doing.

But it's not obvious what Canada would gain by accepting the premise that its border is broken.

What does 'Canada First' mean?

Granted, it's also not guaranteed that additional action at the border would, on its own, resolve the matter — or that it would somehow result in Trump never making a similar threat again. If anything, Trump's threat — made before he has even been inaugurated — seems likely to be only the prelude to another very challenging four years (or more).

Bigger matters await beyond the question of how much fentanyl is getting across the border.

Since Trump's post last week, Poilievre's Conservatives have embraced the idea — or at least the rhetoric — of "Canada first," seemingly as a rejoinder to the "America first" slogan that underpins Donald Trump's unilateral approach to the world. It seems unlikely the Conservative leader is drawing inspiration from the original Canada First movement of the 1870s. Beyond that, it's not clear what "Canada first" might actually mean.

Claiming to be "Canada first" would seem to suggest that other Canadian leaders are not making Canada their primary concern. But "America first" was also originally an isolationist idea.

In a speech in the House of Commons last week, Poilievre dismissed the notion of turning away from the United States. But he has framed Trump's return as another reason to repeal some of the Trudeau government's climate policies. And he said on Sunday that he would cut foreign aid to help increase funding for national defence (though again without promising to reach Canada's NATO target).

In a speech she delivered in the House in 2017, Freeland preemptively dismissed anyone who would turn "inward" in the spirit of "Canada first." But one can fairly ask whether the Liberal government has done enough over the last seven years to live up to Freeland's suggestion that Canada is "an essential country at this time in the life of our planet."

The next federal election was already promising to be a clash of very different visions. Now the Trump presidency hangs over everything. And the challenges that presidency poses go far beyond questions about the success or failure of a Friday night at Mar-a-Lago.