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

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.