When Trump threatens, Canada and Mexico go their own way
A week before Donald Trump fired off yet another tariff threat on his neighbours, Justin Trudeau and Claudia Sheinbaum had a chance to confer in person about how to tackle that very scenario. Would they join forces against their errant trading partner or was it going to be a case of every person for themselves?
The evidence is pointing to the latter.
The two leaders huddled at the Group of 20 summit in Brazil, and what emerged was that the embattled Canadian prime minister was preoccupied with probing his counterpart on Chinese investment — such as whether BYD Co. would be making cars in Mexico — while the freshly elected president south of the border was looking for assurances Trudeau wouldn’t succumb to pressure to eject her country from their three-way trade pact with the United States.
“The prime minister does not agree with taking Mexico out of the treaty, he told me so clearly,” Sheinbaum was at pains to tell reporters after their tête-à-tête. “He asked me about a Chinese company’s auto plant, and if there was a plant in Mexico.” She pointed out that BYD’s only North American plant was in California.
The real test of whether the duo would handle Trump’s hardball tactics as allies — or if they would turn on each other to earn his favour — came soon after. As they returned from Rio de Janeiro, Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social to announce he would impose 25 per cent tariffs on all goods from Mexico and Canada.
Within two hours, Trudeau was on the phone with him. Four days later he was flying to Palm Beach to dine on steak and mashed potatoes with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Diplomats and policymakers in the rest of the world are taking notes of what one G20 official in Rio described as a form
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