Canadian foreign, finance ministers meet Trump’s team on tariffs

Senior members of Canada’s cabinet held talks Friday with US President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees to lead the departments of commerce and the interior, as Ottawa works to hold off the threat of punishing tariffs.

Canada’s newly-appointed Finance Minister Dominic Leblanc and Foreign Minister Melanie Joly met with Howard Lutnick, Trump’s commerce secretary nominee, who will also lead the country’s tariff and trade agenda.

Interior secretary nominee Doug Burgum was also at the meeting held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Leblanc’s spokesman Jean-Sebastien Comeau, who confirmed the participants, described the talks as “positive and productive.”

Trump has vowed to impose crippling 25-percent tariffs on all Canadian imports when he takes office next month.

He has said they will remain in place until Canada addresses the flow of undocumented migrants and the drug fentanyl into the United States.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised retaliatory measures should Trump follow through on his pledge, raising fears of a trade war.

Leblanc and Joly “outlined the measures in Canada’s Border Plan and reiterated the shared commitment to strengthen border security as well as combat the harm caused by fentanyl to save Canadian and American lives,” Comeau said in a statement.

Canada’s Border Plan — estimated to cost CAN$1 billion ($694 million) — was crafted as part of Ottawa’s response to Trump’s concerns.

Lutnick and Burgum “agreed to relay information to President Trump,” the statement said.

Trudeau is facing his worst political crisis since sweeping into office in 2015.

Leblanc was named finance minister earlier this month after the surprise resignation of Chrystia Freeland.

In a scathing resignation letter, Freeland accused Trudeau of prioritizing handouts to voters instead of preparing Canada’s finances for a possible trade war.

More than 75 percent of Canadian exports go to the United States and nearly two million Canadian jobs depend on trade.