Premiers to meet with Trudeau Wednesday about trade and tariffs, Ford says

TORONTO — Canada’s premiers are meeting virtually Wednesday with the prime minister to discuss the threat of U.S. tariffs on Canadian imports, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he hopes to talk about the country’s approach to negotiations.

It comes two weeks after the premiers’ last meeting with Justin Trudeau, where they discussed how to respond to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s warning that he will impose a 25 per cent tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico when he takes office next month.

The federal government promised at the last meeting to update the premiers, Ford said.

“They said they were going to come back with a plan to put together a proposal, No. 1 to strengthen our borders and hopefully meet our two-per-cent NATO commitment,” Ford said.

Trudeau has committed to meet NATO members’ pledge to spend at least two per cent of GDP on national defence by 2032.

Trudeau recently flew to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to dine with the president-elect and some of his cabinet nominees for an informal discussion on trade and border security.

News of the first ministers’ meeting comes the same day as Trump tauntingly took to social media to say it was a pleasure to dine with “Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada,” a nod to a joke he made at the dinner that he might make Canada the 51st U.S. state.

Trump has said the tariffs would remain in effect until Canada and Mexico stop illegal border crossings and prevent drugs like fentanyl from entering the U.S.

Ontario has produced a slick ad to highlight the mutually beneficial trade connections between the province and the United States, and recently began rolling it out in a massive campaign that includes Fox News prime time, NFL football games and at Washington, D.C., airports over the holidays.

The ads will also run in Washington on transit shelters and billboards, as well as across target states via digital channels and prime placement for Super Bowl streaming on the Fox Sports app, the premier’s office has said.

Ontario’s minister of economic development, job creation and trade was in Washington, D.C., this week meeting with officials from the U.S. Senate and Congress, and said they had all seen Ontario’s ads.

“They also caught the subtleties, like we’ve got the critical minerals that you need,” Vic Fedeli said.

“They need us for these things that are very valuable for their military or chips that they want to make. So there’s a lot of things they’re going to need from us, and that’s why we’re running commercials. That’s why we’re taking these trips down there to make sure that all the right people are talking about all the right points.”

On Fedeli’s last trip to the U.S. he met with both Republicans and Democrats, but this time focused solely on Republicans, he said.

“We’ve got to start focusing now on people who are going to be crafting laws if these things happen to be done by legislation,” Fedeli said.

He is heading back to the U.S. in January, to Nevada, California, Michigan and to Washington, D.C. on inauguration day.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 10, 2024.

Allison Jones, The Canadian Press