Trudeau’s meeting with Trump in Washington will set tone for years
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is being urged to find “common ground” with U.S. President Donald Trump when they meet for a high-stakes meeting in Washington.

TheStar.com
Feb. 9, 2017
Tonda Maccharles and Bruce Campion-Smith

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau heads to the White House Monday for his first face-to-face meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, a high-stakes session that will set the tone for relations between the two nations for years to come.

Personal relationships between leaders matter, says David Wilkins, former U.S. ambassador to Canada.

The upcoming meeting is “immensely important” for the two leaders “to meet and develop a good working relationship,” said Wilkins, past envoy for Republican president George W. Bush in Ottawa. “I think the key is to find middle ground, and there’s plenty of middle ground to find.”

That is how Trudeau is going into the meeting.

The prime minister on Thursday pointed to his responsibility to create jobs and opportunity for Canadian citizens “through the continued close integration on both sides of the borders.

“These are things we have always been very strong on and I will continue to discuss frankly and respectfully on a broad range of issues with the American president,” Trudeau said during a visit to Iqaluit.

In Washington, after announcing the visit, Trump spokesperson Sean Spicer told reporters, “The president looks forward to a constructive conversation in strengthening the deep relationship that exists between the United States and Canada.”

Trump and Trudeau are politicians far apart in age and in political world view. Trudeau must establish a rapport with a conservative nationalist whose behaviour toward women and the LGBTQ community is in stark contrast to his own. They differ on everything from abortion to globalized trade, immigration, how to deal with Russia and China, and what role America — and its ally, Canada — should play on the world stage. And Trudeau must attempt to walk a thin line between alienating Trump and angering Canadians who want him to stand up to the president.

Yet Trudeau is determined to find common ground on the economy and their election vows to help the middle class.

“I don’t think you have to have similar personalities or be a similar age to work together,” Wilkins said in an interview.

And while he understands there are “apprehensions and questions” in Canada about how it will unfold, “I think it’s early to be laying down the gauntlet as saying if you do this, we’ll do that. I think now’s the time to have measured discussions and nothing else.”

“In the end I believe the U.S. administration will be very good for Canada,” Wilkins said.

Monday’s meeting comes after three Liberal cabinet ministers and Trudeau’s top advisers — chief of staff Katie Telford and principal secretary Gerald Butts were in Washington Thursday — have made their own pilgrimages to the U.S. capital.

They’ve held several meetings with key players in the Trump administration to lay the groundwork so Canada would avoid getting caught in Trump’s protectionist agenda.

Off the bat, little about this first meeting between the two leaders is customary.

Ottawa usually is the first foreign destination for a new U.S. president, a traditional display of friendship with America’s closest trading partner and ally. But after logistical wrangling over where the two should meet, and just what the agenda should be, officials settled on a working visit to the U.S. capital instead.

A Canadian official told the Star the goal was to take advantage of the first opportunity to meet Trump so that the two would not find themselves meeting for the first time at an international summit and a gathering of world leaders.

There’ll be no “dude diplomacy” or “bromance” or fancy gala state dinner as when Trudeau visited outgoing president Barack Obama. No address to Parliament, as when Obama came to Ottawa.

Instead it will be a meeting focused on Trudeau and Trump getting to know each other, with the agenda focused largely on economic issues, said the official who provided background information only. The delegation of ministers who will travel with Trudeau is not finalized.

Trudeau will be Trump’s third foreign leader to head to the White House. British Prime Minister Theresa May was first, prompting protests in the U.K. that she was cosying up to Trump. Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has already visited the U.S. president at Trump Tower in New York, and returns for a White House summit Friday. After that he flies with Trump to his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago where Trump will host him at “the Winter White House” — as Spicer called it.

(That optic would not likely do for Trudeau, amid an ongoing controversy over his vacation at the Aga Khan’s private island.)

Trump and Trudeau have spoken twice by phone. Official readouts have painted them as courteous and professional calls. But Trump has angered other leaders.

Trump curtailed a phone call with Australia’s prime minister, annoyed by an immigration deal Trump doesn’t want to honour. The president sent a letter to China’s President Xi Jinping, yet held an hour-long phone call with Russia — all moves that suggest nothing is predictable about Monday’s meeting. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto cancelled a visit abruptly when Trump insisted he will build a southern border wall and make the Mexico pay for it.

Trump has vowed to quickly move on his campaign pledge to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. The administration has not given the required formal six-month notice of its intention.

And while his sights appear set on Mexico, there is concern in Canada about the impact of the president’s protectionist talk on cross-border economic relations.

However, in Trudeau’s eagerness to avoid becoming “collateral damage” — as Canadian Ambassador David MacNaughton put it — Canadian business leaders in the auto sector are urging Trudeau not to cut Mexico loose.

Flavio Volpe, head of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, one of many stakeholders the Trudeau government has consulted, said in an interview, “You can’t make a car, you can’t do a final assembly in any of the three countries without sourcing parts from the other two.”

“Part of the discussion is to make sure everyone understands that in our business there are no borders. And the American interest exists in all three countries, as well as the Mexican and Canadian interest.”

On the Parliament Hill, Conservative and NDP MPs had conflicting advice for Trudeau.

New Democrat MP Nathan Cullen said Trudeau should be “speak directly and firmly” to the U.S. president.

“This man has proven himself to be a bully consistently through his private and his political dealings. How do you deal with a bully? You simply have to be firm with them,” Cullen said.

But Conservative trade critic Gerry Ritz counselled a more cautious approach and said the Liberal government should avoid antagonizing a president who “takes this stuff with a very thin skin.”

“As my Irish grandfather, the philosopher, used to say, ‘Be careful whose ass you kick up on the way up because you’ll be kissing it on the way down.’ You know, crow doesn’t taste good no matter how much ketchup you put on it.”