Mexico’s president has said Canadians “could only wish they had the cultural riches” of her country as tensions mount between the two nations, caught in a feud over tariffs and trade exacerbated by Donald Trump.
The US president-elect threatened in a social media post last week to apply devastating levies of 25% on all goods and services from both countries, and to keep them in place until “such time as drugs, in particular fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country!”
Since then, both Mexico and Canada have worked to gain assurances from Trump that the tariffs, which would prove catastrophic to their economies, would be walked back.
But in an effort to gain an upper hand, both leaders have worked to cast the other as ill-prepared to meet the challenges, amid warnings from experts that Trump “loves to divide and conquer”.
Even before Trump’s announcement, the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and a handful of provincial premiers had mused openly about cutting Mexico out of future trade talks, instead pivoting towards a Canada-US trade pact – a move that Mexico’s lead negotiator called a “betrayal”.
But federal ministers and diplomats have continued to frame Canada’s handling of the border and fentanyl by contrasting its actions against those of Mexico.
In late November, Canada’s immigration minister, Marc Miller, likened the 23,000 interceptions by US officials at the northern border in 2023 to a “significant weekend at the Mexico border”, where 1,530,523 “encounters” were recorded last year.
Trudeau and Trump met at the president-elect’s Florida resort on Sunday, discussing trade and migration. The dinner between the two was a diplomatic win for Trudeau, who became the first G7 leader to meet with Trump.
Two days after the meeting, Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself standing atop a mountain range, a Canadian flag by his side with the caption “Oh Canada!”
Canada’s ambassador to the United States, Kirsten Hillman, told reporters the meeting was productive despite receiving no assurances from Trump that he would walk back the tariffs. (Guardian)
