Trudeau to meet with all premiers following Trump’s 25% tariff threat

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has agreed to Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s request to hold a First Ministers’ Meeting this week after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian exports.

Trump announced on Monday evening that he would slap those punitive tariffs on all products entering the United States from Canada and Mexico on Jan. 20, 2025, his first day in office, unless those countries stop the flow of drugs and migrants across their borders.

Trudeau said on his way to a cabinet meeting on Tuesday that he had a “good call” with Trump the night before.

“We obviously talked about laying out the facts, (talked) about how the intense and effective connections between our two countries flow back and forth. We talked about some of the challenges that we can work on together,” he said.

“This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on and that’s what we’ll do,” he added.

As chair of the Council of the Federation, Ontario Premier Doug Ford wrote to Trudeau to ask for him to meet with all premiers to talk about Canada-U.S. relations in a letter sent Monday.

Trudeau said he talked to Ford after Trump’s announcement and agreed to a meeting later this week. He said he also spoke to Quebec Premier Francois Legault on Monday.

Trudeau said the “Team Canada approach is what works” and thanked the premiers for putting aside partisanship for the good of the country.

More details to follow…

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