TORONTO (AP) — Two Canadian Cabinet ministers left a meeting at Mar-a-Lago on Friday without assurances President-elect Donald Trump will back away from threatened tariffs on all products from the major American trading partner.
The Canadians called the talks “productive” and said there would be further discussions but one official said the Americans remain fixated on the U.S. trade deficit with Canada.
Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly met with Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, as well as North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department.
Trump has threatened to impose 25% tariffs on all Canadian products if Canada does not stem what he calls a flow of migrants and fentanyl into the United States — even though far fewer of each cross into the U.S. from Canada than from Mexico, which Trump has also threatened.
“Minister LeBlanc and Minister Joly had a positive, productive meeting at Mar-a-Lago with Howard Lutnick and Doug Burgum, as a follow-up to the dinner between the Prime Minister and President Trump last month,” said Jean-Sébastien Comeau, a spokesman for LeBlanc.
Comeau said both ministers outlined the measures in Canada's billion-dollar plan to increase security at the border 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 Lutnick and Burgum agreed to relay the information to Trump.
A senior Canadian official, however, said the Americans remain preoccupied on the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and want it to shrink. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Trump has made an issue of the U.S. trade deficit, erroneously calling it a subsidy.
Canada’s ambassador to Washington, Kirsten Hillman, has said the U.S. had a $75 billion trade deficit with Canada last year. But she noted a third of what Canada sells into the U.S. are energy exports and said there is a deficit when oil prices are high.
About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports and 85% of U.S. electricity imports are from Canada. Alberta alone sends 4.3 million barrel s of oil per day to the U.S which tends to consume about 20 million barrels a day.
The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Further discussions are expected in the coming weeks. Joly will also have dinner with U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham on Friday.
Trump has been trolling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on social media in recent weeks by calling him the Governor of the 51st state.
Trudeau has not directly responded, but did post a link Thursday to a six-minute video on YouTube from 2010 in which American NBC journalist Tom Brokaw “explains Canada to Americans.”
“Some information about Canada for Americans” Trudeau wrote in the post on X.
The video, which originally aired during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, explains similarities between the two countries, the massive trading relationship and the actions of the Canadian military in World War 2 and Afghanistan.
“In our darkest hours Canada has been with us,” Brokaw says in the video. “In the long history of sovereign neighbors there has never been a relationship as close, productive and peaceful as the U.S. and Canada.”
Trudeau has told Trump that Americans would also suffer if the president-elect follows through on a plan to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products.
Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian dollars ($2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day. Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states.
Flows of migrants and seizures of drugs are vastly different at the U.S.’s two land borders. U.S. customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border during the last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border.
Most of the fentanyl reaching the U.S. — where it causes about 70,000 overdose deaths annually — is made by Mexican drug cartels using precursor chemicals smuggled from Asia.
On immigration, the U.S. Border Patrol reported 1.53 million encounters with migrants at the southwest border with Mexico between October 2023 and September 2024. That compares to 23,721 encounters at the Canadian border during that time.
Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick speaks during a news conference with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
FILE - Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Finance, Public Safety and Intergovernmental Affairs, participates in a news conference after a swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, Ontario, Dec. 16, 2024. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
FILE - Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly responds to a question during a news conference in Ottawa, Nov. 1, 2024. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
NEW DELHI (AP) — Manmohan Singh, the former Indian prime minister widely regarded as the architect of the country’s economic reform program, was cremated after a state funeral on Saturday as politicians and the public mourned his death.
The veteran leader, who was also credited for a landmark nuclear deal with the United States, died late Thursday at age 92.
Singh’s body was taken Saturday morning to the headquarters of his Congress party in New Delhi, where party leaders and activists paid tributes to him and chanted “Manmohan Singh lives forever.”
Abhishek Bishnoi, a party leader, said Singh's death was big loss for the country. “He used to speak little, but his talent and his actions spoke louder than his words,” he said.
Later, Singh’s body was transported to a crematorium ground for his last rites as soldiers beat drums.
Government officials, politicians and family members paid their last respects to Singh, whose casket was adorned with flowers and wrapped in the Indian flag. Security personnel honored him with a ceremonial gun salute.
Indian President Draupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who called Singh one of the country's “most distinguished leaders,” and several Cabinet ministers participated in the funeral ceremony.
Singh’s body was then transferred to a pyre and cremated as religious hymns played.
Authorities declared a seven-day mourning period and canceled all cultural and entertainment events during that time. Government buildings across India are flying the national flag at half-staff.
A mild-mannered technocrat, Singh was prime minister for 10 years and leader of the Congress party in Parliament’s upper house, earning a reputation as a man of great personal integrity. He was chosen to be prime minister in 2004 by Sonia Gandhi, the widow of assassinated Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Singh was reelected in 2009, but his second term was clouded by financial scandals and corruption charges over the organization of the 2010 Commonwealth Games. This led to the Congress party’s crushing defeat in 2014 national elections by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party under the leadership of Narendra Modi.
Singh adopted a low profile after relinquishing the post of prime minister.
As finance minister, Singh in 1991 instituted reforms that moved India away from a socialist-patterned economy and toward a capitalist model in the face of a huge balance of payments deficit, skirting a potential economic crisis.
Singh was the first Sikh to hold the country’s top post and made a public apology in Parliament for the 1984 Sikh Massacre in which some 3,000 Sikhs were killed after then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.
In a move hailed as one of his biggest achievements apart from economic reforms, Singh ended India’s nuclear isolation by signing a deal with the U.S. that gave India access to American nuclear technology.
But the deal hurt his coalition government, with Communist allies withdrawing their support and criticism of the agreement growing within India in 2008 when it was finalized.
U.S. President Joe Biden in a condolence statement called Singh a true statesman and a dedicated public servant who “charted pathbreaking progress that will continue to strengthen our nations — and the world — for generations to come.”
“The unprecedented level of cooperation between the United States and India today would not have been possible without the prime minister’s strategic vision and political courage,” Biden said.
Gursharan Kaur, second left, wife of former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, prays next to the casket of her late husband to pay her tributes at the Congress party headquarters in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024. (AP Photo)
Congress party President Mallikarjun Kharge touches the casket of former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to pay his tributes at the party headquarters in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024. (AP Photo)
Congress party President Mallikarjun Kharge, left, and senior leader Sonia Gandhi are helped by an aide to place a flag on the casket of former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at their party headquarters in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024. (AP Photo)
Gursharan Kaur, center right, wife of former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, sits with others next to the casket of her late husband at Congress party headquarters in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024. (AP Photo)
Congress Party leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra touches the casket of former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to pay her tributes at the party headquarters in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024. (AP Photo)
Gursharan Kaur, right, wife of former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, sits with others next to the casket of her late husband at Congress party headquarters in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024. (AP Photo)
Security officials and others walk with the hearse carrying the body of former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh towards the cremation site in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024. (AP Photo)
FILE - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh greets the crowd during an election campaign rally at Khumtai, in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, Saturday, March 29, 2014. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath, File)
Security officials and others walk with the hearse carrying the body of former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh towards the cremation site in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024. (AP Photo)
