Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs As President-elect Donald Trump prepares for his return to the White House, Canada and Mexico have already begun taking shots at each other in the fight for a seat at his table.The U.S.’s two closest and largest trading partners are bracing themselves for a drastic change in American trade policy after Trump warned that he would place a 25 percent tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico to curb the influx of migrants and drugs across U.S. borders.As a result, both countries have heightened rhetoric towards each other in a bid to position themselves as the stronger trading partner in North America. Officials in Canada and Mexico have also been highly critical of Trump’s proposed tariffs, with threats being made to raise taxes on U.S. goods in return.Newsweek contacted representatives for the Mexican and Canadian governments for a response to the developments via email.Canadian President Justin Trudeau visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, becoming one of the first world leaders to meet him in person after his victory in November. While no garuantees on trade were met, Trump described the meeting as “productive”, and when the Canadian ambassador to the U.S. commented on the meeting, they highlighted talks on border policy explicitly in comparison to Mexico.”The message that our border is so vastly different than the Mexican border was really understood,” Ambassador Kirsten Hillman told reporters on Sunday, framing the discussion in relation to Trump’s stance on immigration and drug trade along the southern border.
President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attend the NATO summit at the Grove Hotel on December 4, 2019 in Watford, England. The two men met for the first time after Trump’s election…
President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attend the NATO summit at the Grove Hotel on December 4, 2019 in Watford, England. The two men met for the first time after Trump’s election on Friday.
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In a similar stance, Canadian Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said, “We shouldn’t confuse the Mexican border with the Canadian border.”The next day, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said that her country “must be respected, especially by its trading partners”.The newly-elected president also said that Canada “could only wish they had the cultural riches Mexico has”, taking a return shot at the other nation grappling with the U.S.’s new administration. Later in her speech, Sheinbaum said: “We are not going to fall for a provocation of which country is better.”However, Sheinbaum also said on Tuesday that Canada has “a very serious problem with fentanyl consumption,” echoing Trump’s call for both nations to clamp down on the drug entering the U.S.This was followed by an announcement on Wednesday in which Mexican officials said that they had seized more than one ton of fentanyl pills, detained two men and confiscated multiple firearms in an operation in Sinaloa.But the two nations have not just been taking shots at each other. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce strongly condemned Trump’s proposed tariff policy, arguing that it would result”Being America’s ‘nice neighbor’ won’t get us anywhere in this situation,” Candace Laing, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement given to Newsweek.”President-elect Trump’s intention to impose 25 percent tariffs signals that the U.S.-Canada trade relationship is no longer about mutual benefit. To him, it’s about winners and losers—with Canada on the losing end.”We’re facing a significant shift in the relationship between long-standing allies. Canada’s signature approach needs to evolve: we must be prepared to take a couple of punches if we’re going to stake out our position. It’s time to trade ‘sorry’ for ‘sorry, not sorry’.”Do you have a story we should be covering? Do you have any questions about this story? Contact [email protected].
