Source Reveals Trudeau and Trump Will Meet for Dinner in Florida

OTTAWA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is meeting with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, a source has confirmed to The Canadian Press.

Trudeau’s plane landed in West Palm Beach, Fla., Friday evening, not far from where Trump’s transition team is based at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

The source, who is not authorized to speak publicly about the events, confirmed Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc is also in attendance.

The first in-person meeting between the two leaders comes at the end of a rocky week in which Trump threatened to impose stiff tariffs on all imports from Canada.

Earlier in the day, Trudeau said he believes the president-elect’s tariff threats against Canada and Mexico should be taken seriously.

Trump said on social media on Monday night he would slap a 25 percent tariff on imports from the U.S.’s closest neighbours unless the two countries stop illegal border crossings and prevent illicit drugs such as fentanyl from entering the U.S.

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“One of the things that is really important to understand is that Donald Trump, when he makes statements like that, he plans on carrying them out. There’s no question about it,” Trudeau said when speaking with reporters in Queens County, P.E.I., on Friday.

Trudeau called Trump on Monday night after the social media post and talked up the mutual dependence of the two economies.

The prime minister convened a meeting with the premiers on Wednesday at their request to discuss the incoming U.S. administration’s approach on trade and its concerns about the Canadian border.

During a debate in Parliament this week over Trump’s tariff threat, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland pointed to a long list of industry leaders she has met with since the U.S. election: steel, automotive, pension funds, oil and gas, nuclear, aluminum, electricity, banks, and even AI companies.

“This is Team Canada,” she said.

But the last time the Trudeau Liberals assembled such an effort, they were a relatively new majority government. They also had a lot of help from key conservative figures, such as former Conservative leader Rona Ambrose and, importantly, the late former prime minister Brian Mulroney, who personally knew Trump and his former commerce secretary Wilbur Ross.

This is a developing story, updates will follow.