Canadian ministers meet with Trump's nominee in bid to avoid tariffs

Two Canadian Cabinet ministers met with President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for commerce secretary at Mar-a-Lago on Friday as Canada tries to avoid sweeping tariffs when Trump takes office.

Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Foreign Minister Mlanie Joly met with Howard Lutnick, Trump's nominee for commerce secretary, as well as North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Trump's pick to lead the Interior Department.

Trump has threatened to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian products if Canada does not stem what he calls a flow of migrants and fentanyl into the United States even though far fewer of each cross into the US from Canada than from Mexico, which Trump has also threatened.

Minister LeBlanc and Minister Joly had a positive, productive meeting at Mar-a-Lago with Howard Lutnick and Doug Burgum, as a follow-up to the dinner between the Prime Minister and President Trump last month, said Jean-Sbastien Comeau, a spokesman for LeBlanc.

Comeau said both ministers outlined the measures in Canada's billion-dollar plan to increase security at the border and reiterated the shared commitment to strengthen border security as well as combat the harm caused by fentanyl to save Canadian and American lives.

Comeau said Lutnick and Burgum agreed to relay the information to Trump.

The Trump 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 US 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.

Flows of migrants and seizures of drugs are vastly different at the US' two land borders. US customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border during the last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border.

Most of the fentanyl reaching the US where it causes about 70,000 overdose deaths annually is made by Mexican drug cartels using precursor chemicals smuggled from Asia.

On immigration, the US Border Patrol reported 1.53 million encounters with migrants at the southwest border with Mexico between October 2023 and September 2024. That compares to 23,721 encounters at the Canadian border during that time.

Trump has also made an issue of the US trade deficit with Canada, erroneously calling it a subsidy.

Canada's ambassador to Washington, Kirsten Hillman, has said the US had a $75 billion trade deficit with Canada last year. But she noted a third of what Canada sells into the US are energy exports and said there is a deficit when oil prices are high.

About 60 per cent of US crude oil imports and 85 per cent of US electricity imports are from Canada. Alberta alone sends 4.3 million barrels of oil per day to the US which tends to consume about 20 million barrels a day.

Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian dollars ($2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day. Canada is the top export destination for 36 US states.

Trudeau has told Trump that Americans would also suffer if the president-elect follows through on a plan to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products.