OTTAWA—Shock and nah.
Eight years after Donald Trump’s first election victory shocked Canadian government circles, his second win was not as big a jolt. There’d been months of prepping for it.
Still, it seemed to have not yet fully sunk in.
In the hours after Trump spoke, Israeli, Indian and French leaders quickly congratulated Trump on the social media platform “X” — owned by Trump’s billionaire ally Elon Musk — before much of Canada had woken up.
Around 7:15 a.m. Wednesday, after Associated Press had declared Trump elected, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also posted a statement of congratulations, underlining the two countries’ “friendship” as “the envy of the world” and saying Trump and he shared the goal of creating more “opportunity, prosperity, and security for both of our nations.”
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Trudeau’s formal statement issued shortly afterward congratulated Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance. And when the prime minister later spoke briefly to reporters, Trudeau name-checked the president-elect as “Donald,” congratulating him again before the cameras “on a decisive victory last night.”
“The world is actually even more difficult and more complicated than it was four years ago, and I know that there’s lots of work for us to do, and I’m looking forward to doing it. On our side, we’ve been preparing for this,” Trudeau told reporters. “We’re looking forward to doing this work and we’re going to make sure that this extraordinary friendship and alliance between Canada and the United States continues to be a real benefit to Canadians, but also to people around the world.”
Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland reminded reporters that in Trump’s first term, the two nations had “successfully renegotiated” the NAFTA, and spoke in terms of the payoff that Trump understands best, highlighting the new deal created “thousands of good-paying jobs” said Trudeau. Trade between Canada and the U.S. “amounted to over $1.3 trillion which means over $3.5 billion worth of goods and services crossed the Canada-U.S. border every single day,” Trudeau said.
“Canada will be absolutely fine,” Freeland told reporters. “The reality is, the relationship between Canada and the United States works for both.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, like Trudeau, hinted at the “different” geopolitical dynamic now than when Trump was first in the Oval Office. There’s a Russian-led war in Ukraine that’s drawn in North Korean soldiers, war in the Middle East, and fears of flare-ups in the Taiwan Strait, for starters.
Joly would not comment on whether a Trump presidency makes it harder to resolve conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East the way Canada wants, but she signalled allies are concerned about what is to come, saying she was on the phone Wednesday with Ukraine’s foreign minister and with unnamed European foreign ministers who she said are united in wanting “peace and stability.”
Canada, she said, will do its part to reinforce the North American “partnership” on defence — a pressure point for Trump who wants Ottawa to spend billions more on the military. Joly said she will soon present a new strategy on protecting the Arctic, and Canada has increased its focus on the Indo-Pacific, and is increasing military spending — although not to the level Trump demands — two per cent of GDP. “Our goal is to, of course, get to two per cent,” Joly said.
Hours after Trump’s election was declared, Official Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre, whose Conservatives lead the Liberals by a wide margin in public opinion polls, posted congratulations to him on “X” also underlying the bilateral friendship and trading ties.
“I will work with the president to benefit both countries. My mission: save our jobs,” Poilievre wrote. “The U.S. has already taken half a trillion dollars of investment and jobs from Canada under nine years of Trudeau, and our people cannot afford homes and food.” He said the U.S. election result “confirms we must cancel Trudeau’s plan to quadruple the carbon tax and hike other taxes, which would push hundreds of thousands more jobs south where President Trump will be cutting taxes even further.”
The New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh acknowledged Trump’s election was a gut-punch.
“I think a lot of folks woke up today and woke up really worried, really afraid, felt crushed,” said Singh, telling reporters Trump’s threatened tariffs will “have serious impacts on Canadians,” pointing to the possible hit to the Canadian economy, manufacturing and jobs. “We need to come together, all parties, all leaders, and put Canadian interests first. We need to protect Canadian jobs.”
In the week leading up to and all through election day, Trudeau’s Liberal government had projected an outward calm that belied inward apprehension.
Trudeau and his ministers had earlier downplayed any concerns about the prospects of Trump’s return to the White House, giving off “been-there-done-that” vibes.
“We have all the phone numbers we need to manage the relationship on one side or the other,” Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said.
And yet, most officials who spoke to the Star on and ahead of voting day and most on condition they not be identified, acknowledged Ottawa would face an ever more unpredictable and aggressive Trump administration than before. They anticipated another Trump win would mean four years of messy, fraught and rocky relations, notwithstanding all their prep.
Whether it’s Trump’s threats of 10-per-cent tariffs on all imports, vows of mass deportations, demands for more military spending, or his most recent surprise musings about possible diversions southward of Canadian freshwater resources, the stakes for Canada are enormously high, across a range of files that includes defence, security, trade, immigration, environment, and protectionist Buy America policies.
The stakes more broadly for global peace are also stark.
Trump is non-committal on support for Ukraine in the war against the Russian invasion now backed by North Korean soldiers. In the broadening Middle East conflict, Israel’s right-wing Netanyahu coalition government is expected to be emboldened by the re-election of Trump who withdrew the U.S. from a nuclear non-proliferation deal with Iran, an enemy Israel views as an existential threat.
Many of the former Trump officials Canada engaged with have left his side, although former top trade negotiator Robert Lighthizer remains on his team — a figure that Trudeau’s team knows well.
Freeland told reporters Wednesday the “good news” is the Canada-U.S. economic relationship enjoys “bipartisan support.”
Trump signed the current Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on free trade, “so that means he thinks it’s good,” Freeland said, adding the Democrats under Nancy Pelosi ratified it.
Trudeau and Trump have an oddly friendly relationship, despite past clashes over trade and tariffs. But personal ties with Trump only go so far.
“Donald Trump doesn’t have long-standing personal friendships with anybody,” said former Canadian ambassador David MacNaughton. In an interview days before the election, he described Trump as “transactional.”
“You can be number one on the hit parade and then all of a sudden … do something wrong and you’re gone,” he said. “You’ve got to find a way to make him feel like he’s in charge, or winning … And that’ll be even more so this go around, because he won’t have the same kind of solid people who are prepared to say the truth to power.”
Trudeau rejected accusations earlier Tuesday by Poilievre that the Liberal government “capitulated” to U.S. administrations under Barack Obama, Trump and Joe Biden. Poilievre claimed Trudeau failed to protect Canadian softwood lumber, construction and steel workers.
But the prime minister said “we stood up against Donald Trump” during the last North American free trade re-negotiation contrary to Conservatives including Stephen Harper who urged Liberals to back down and accept concessions.
The last time around, the whole government reorganized its operations around the Trump presidency which rocketed up the agenda and became the single most important issue for Trudeau during the NAFTA re-negotiations. The prime minister, cabinet ministers and officials calibrated all communications and actions to anticipate Trump’s reactions, and tried to co-ordinate a unified front with premiers, business and union leaders.
The prime minister created a cross-partisan NAFTA advisory council, and a Canada-U.S. team in the PMO, shifted Freeland into foreign affairs making her the lead minister responsible for the cross-border relationship, and created a dedicated cabinet committee. The effort was consistently thrown off balance, as Trump dialed up global tensions with China, rewrote trade rules, levied punitive tariffs against allies in Europe and Canada, and dominated global attention.
At that time, Canada’s cross-border charm offensive was particularly focused on key economic sectors directly at risk in the NAFTA talks, like the auto industry, and Canada’s quota-managed agriculture sectors.
This time, according to Amb. Kirsten Hillman, Canada has deepened outreach beyond border states to lawmakers and influencers in other states like Texas, South Carolina, Florida or New Mexico, places that have “enormous economic and trade relationships with Canada, often multiple times more than their next trading partner … that maybe aren’t thinking about Canada every day.”
The cabinet committee and special ministerial designation no longer exists. Neither does the NAFTA advisory council. But several departments, including Freeland’s, have delivered memos to the Prime Minister’s Office, tracking scenarios and possible responses in the event of a Trump win, on immigration, environment, natural resources, tax issues, trade tariffs, foreign policy issues, defence.
Champagne, the industry minister, said Tuesday Ottawa has shifted its pitch to the U.S. from “friendly neighbour” and its focus on the “commerce aspect” of the relationship to position Canada instead as a reliable, strategic, national and economic security partner.
MacNaughton, ambassador to Washington from 2016 to 2019, said in an interview days before the vote that Canada has to align its interests with the U.S. on matters of trade, defence and security.
“The more we align our interests with their interests the better off we’ll be.”
Pressure on Canada to ramp up defence spending is expected to be immediate. Trump’s former ambassador Kelly Craft has repeatedly issued public warnings in the past week that Canada had better “buckle up.”
Neither the Liberals nor Conservatives have committed to hiking military budgets to that level. Champagne and Joly sidestepped direct answers Tuesday about whether Canada would increase defence spending, now only scheduled to rise from 1.3 to 1.7 per cent of GDP by 2032.
With files from Mark Ramzy
