Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he thinks U.S. president-elect Donald Trump is drumming up drama on Canadian statehood to detract from tariff talks.
“What I think is happening in this is President Trump, who’s a very skillful negotiator, is getting people to be somewhat distracted by that conversation,” Trudeau said in an interview Thursday on CNN with Jake Tapper.
Trudeau said he thinks Trump is doing this to take focus off the reality that “25 per cent tariffs on oil and gas, and electricity, and steel and aluminum, and lumber and concrete, and everything the American consumers buy from Canada is suddenly going to get a lot more expensive if he moves forward on these tariffs.”
“And that’s something that I think we need to be focusing on a little bit more,” Trudeau said in the in-person interview.
The prime minister’s comments come as CTV News has confirmed that Canadian officials are narrowing a list of American-made products to target with counter-tariffs in the event the federal government must respond to U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods.
Trump has threatened to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian goods imported into the U.S., and for months Trudeau and his team have been in talks with Trump and his officials in an effort to have the returning Republican relent.
While Trump has previously stated he’d hit Canada with the major trade action if the government didn’t address the flow of illegal drugs and migrants over the shared border, officials in this country have said Canada has been given no assurances tariffs can be avoided despite rolling out a $1.3-billion border plan.
As for Trump’s repeated social media suggestion of annexing Canada – seeing it become the 51st U.S. state, potentially through “economic force” – Trudeau said, “That’s not going to happen.”
“One of the ways we define ourselves most easily is, ‘Well, we’re not American.’ There is such a depth of pride that that’s not actually an issue,” Trudeau said during the interview, which was airing as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre spoke to reporters on this side of the border about the looming tariff threat.
Poilievre said he thinks Canada should lock arms with “American economic allies on the ground that will put pressure on Washington to do the right thing,” and that Conservatives would “state clearly that Canada is a sovereign and independent country.”
“We will protect our integrity as a nation through strength,” Poilievre said.
The prime minister was in Washington, D.C., on Thursday to attend the funeral for former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. Trudeau said that while there, he did not speak with Trump.
He also denied Trump’s suggestion that his re-election played a role in Trudeau announcing on Monday that he’s stepping down as soon as the Liberal Party of Canada names his successor.
More details to come…
With files from CTV News’ Mike Le Couteur, Spencer Van Dyk and Stephanie Ha
