Trump to find a chilly host in Canada visit amid trade rift
Published 8:10 am Friday, June 8, 2018
QUEBEC CITY — When President Ronald Reagan visited Quebec three decades ago, he was so friendly with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney they sang a song together.
Expect no duets when President Donald Trump makes his first presidential visit to Canada on Friday for a summit in a picturesque Quebec town with the leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy democracies. The mood will likely be something less than harmonious.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hasn’t been shy about venting his fury with Trump for imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports — including Canada’s — and for justifying the protectionist move by calling those imports a threat to U.S. national security.
Trudeau has charged that he found the tariffs “insulting” and said such tactics are hardly how two close allies and trading partners that fought side-by-side in World War II, Korea and Afghanistan should treat one another. The Trump administration has also clashed with Canada over his insistence that the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement involving the United States, Canada and Mexico be written to better serve the U.S.
The prime minister had at first refrained from criticizing Trump, apparently in the hope that he could forge a personal relationship that might help preserve the landmark free trade deal, a forerunner of which Reagan and Mulroney negotiated. Those two leaders became fast friends and famously sang “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” together in Quebec City in 1985.
Trudeau’s courting of Trump appeared to work for a time. The president had initially exempted Canada from the steel and aluminum tariffs in March. But Trudeau became exasperated and took a shot after Trump let the exemption expire last week.