A team of Canada’s premiers is meeting a senior White House official on Wednesday as they continue to make the case against tariffs on Canadian goods.
All 13 premiers made the trip to the U.S. capital this week to present a united front against President Donald Trump’s twofold tariff threats against Canada.
While P.E.I. Premier Dennis King and Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston had to leave early due to weather concerns, the remaining premiers will be meeting with Jim Blair, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for legislative affairs, sources tell CBC News.
A number of premiers told CBC News on their way into the White House that they’re hoping to get a sense of the Trump administration’s tariff endgame.
“I suspect mostly this will be a listening exercise. What is the U.S. looking to get and how can we work closely together,” B.C. Premier David Eby said.
New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt echoed Eby’s point, saying she was looking forward to “learning more” about the Trump administration’s aim.
“We’re each others’ best customers. We love buying from the U.S. and we think that this partnership between Canada and the U.S. could be made stronger,” she said.
CBC’s Katie Simpson speaks with several Canadian premiers as they arrive outside the White House for a meeting with Trump administration officials. The premiers are in Washington to make the case against U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods.
The premiers wouldn’t confirm who they would be meeting with at the White House and only said they would be seeing Trump “officials” or “advisers.”
Trump signed executive orders on Monday that will impose 25 per cent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports — including from Canada — starting March 12.
Those tariffs would stack on top of 25 per cent tariffs that Trump has been threatening to impose on most Canadian goods. Those tariffs were set to come into force last week, but Ottawa reached an agreement with the Trump administration to delay their implementation until at least March 4.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said the premiers will be making the case that Canada is cracking down on fentanyl, which Trump has previously cited as one of his reasons for the March 4 tariffs.
“We recognize that fentanyl’s a problem for us too and we’re doing everything we can to stomp it out in our communities,” she said.
When asked what a win for the premiers would look like, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said “no tariffs.”
“We’re a great friend of America and Canadians are very proud of the relationship we’ve had over the years and so we’re here as Team Canada,” he said.
Federal Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who is also in Washington, met with Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and other officials on Wednesday.
“I told them clearly that Canadians have become quite emotional in the last number of weeks and quite united in terms of doing what’s necessary to avoid this punitive impact on our economy,” LeBlanc told reporters.
Following his meeting with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and other U.S. officials in Washington, Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc says he is confident that Canada has the attention of the U.S. administration. LeBlanc says they discussed the close integration of the steel and aluminum sectors in Canada and the U.S. and that he’s ‘optimistic.’
“We have work to do with the government to continue to make that point, but I certainly raised with them the solidarity that we’ve seen across the country in terms of meeting this moment in a way that protects the sovereignty of Canada and protects our economic interests.”
Trump has shifted back and forth on his reasoning for the March 4 tariffs, though one of his common complaints is about fentanyl entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico. Lutnick suggested during his confirmation hearing that the tariff threat on those two countries is meant to spur action at the shared borders.
Despite U.S. data showing that the amount of fentanyl entering the U.S. from the north is a fraction compared to the amount crossing in from the southern boundary, Ottawa has shown a willingness to engage the administration on the issue.
Former Mountie Kevin Brosseau spoke with reporters for the first time on Wednesday as Canada’s newly appointed fentanyl czar. Brosseau said one of his goals is to get the amount of fentanyl entering the United States from Canada to zero.
The federal government has committed $1.3 billion to boost border security and on Tuesday named former Mountie Kevin Brosseau as a new fentanyl czar.
LeBlanc said Wednesday that he brought up the recent actions Ottawa has taken on the border in his meeting with Lutnick.
“We believe that the national security interest around border integrity and the common fight against fentanyl is in a positive lane, but we’re going to continue to do that work,” he said.
LeBlanc also said he stressed to Lutnick that impacts from steel and aluminum tariffs would be felt on both sides of the border.
