Canadian Ministers Discuss Border Security with Trump's Team in Florida

 

Two senior members of the Canadian federal cabinet, Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, recently visited Florida to discuss Canada's new $1.3 billion border plan with members of Donald Trump's transition team. The meeting took place at Mar-a-Lago, where the ministers met with Howard Lutnick, Trump's nominee for commerce secretary, and Doug Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota and current nominee for secretary of the interior.

The ministers shared few details about their meetings, simply stating that the U.S. officials took notes and agreed to relay messages to Trump. The discussions focused on strengthening border security and combating the harm caused by fentanyl to save Canadian and American lives. The ministers emphasized the negative impacts of Trump's threatened tariffs on both Canada and the U.S., and agreed to continue the discussions in the coming weeks.

This visit comes less than four weeks before Trump is sworn in again as president, and amid his threats to impose a new 25 percent import tariff on Canada and Mexico over concerns about trade imbalances, illegal drugs, and migration issues at the borders. The broad strokes of Canada's new border plan were made public on December 17, including a new aerial intelligence task force to provide round-the-clock surveillance of the border, and improved efforts using technology and canine teams to seek out drugs in shipments leaving Canada.

LeBlanc and Joly's visit follows a dinner between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Trump last month, where Trump first raised the notion of Canada becoming the 51st state. While LeBlanc has repeatedly insisted that this comment was just a joke, Trump has continued to make similar remarks on social media.