Coronavirus provocations

Trudeau waits out Trump’s coronavirus provocations

The prime minister counters the president's Covid-19 challenges by applying lessons learned from NAFTA's crash course.

By ANDY BLATCHFORD

In the span of a month, Donald Trump has proposed militarizing the U.S.-Canada border, cutting off N95 mask exports to Canada and then reopening the Canadian frontier despite a raging pandemic.

The Canadian response? Challenge accepted.

Far from provoking a meltdown in U.S.-Canada relations, the Covid-19 crisis has revealed an intriguing dynamic: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is finally used to dealing with Trump.

The U.S. president's coronavirus-driven provocations have been met with “no’s” from top Canadian officials, who have then moved onto other priorities.

Trudeau learned about Trump the hard way during two years of bare-knuckle NAFTA talks.

Over that time, Trump made repeated threats to rip up a trade deal that's economically vital for Canada, slapped tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum and launched very public personal insults at the prime minister.

The NAFTA tumult taught Trudeau and those around him how to engage with the Trump administration and gave them confidence they can work out disputes, a senior Canadian official told POLITICO. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss inside details about the relationship.

First, the Liberal official said, Trudeau’s camp learned that the best way to deal with flare-ups is to go directly to senior Trump decision-makers — and to do it quickly and aggressively.

With Trump in charge, the Canadians find they have to go to the very top, politically, to get anything done.

As a comparison, when dealing with the Obama administration, the source said Canadian officials could call up someone in the State Department about an issue and feel reasonably comfortable that person had the authority to speak for their government.

To make the Trump approach work, of course, Canada had to nurture relationships with key personalities in the White House, an exercise that got underway at the start of NAFTA’s renegotiation.

Trudeau has held regular calls with Trump, but his chief of staff, Katie Telford, and Brian Clow, his executive director of Canada-U.S. relations, have been points of contact with their American counterparts, the insider said.

Trump and Trudeau actually speak about every two to three weeks, including during the pandemic. The person noted much of the U.S.-Canada Covid-19 talks have also been channeled through Telford and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Kirsten Hillman, who was recently promoted to ambassador, and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair have also been central in Covid-19 discussions. Freeland has made calls to Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, while Blair has worked with acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf.

Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is also often involved, and the Trudeau government considers him someone who has the ear of the president, the official said.

Other levels of Canadian government have also played a big role, like they did during the NAFTA negotiations. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, for example, called Lighthizer when it looked like Ontario would miss out on a crucial delivery of N95s.

On the troops-to-the-border issue, the source said that when Trudeau’s camp learned from the Department of Homeland Security about the proposal to move U.S. soldiers to the Canadian frontier, Freeland was on the phone right away to underline that such a move was unacceptable and unnecessary. In public, she warned that an additional U.S. military presence at the border would be “damaging” to the countries' relationship.

The U.S. eventually decided against sending soldiers to the border.

Next came the president’s move to cut off Canada from its only U.S. supplier — 3M — of N95 medical respirators, which are critical for frontline health professionals. Once again, Canada protested and 3M announced it had reached an agreement with the White House to allow it to continue shipping N95s to Canada.

To emphasize the reciprocal relationship, Trudeau brought up the “thousands of nurses” who cross the bridge every day from Windsor, Ontario, to work in the Detroit medical system.

Freeland said Canada also reminded U.S. officials how intertwined their supply chains are when it comes to medical equipment and services.

“We just have to keep at it and, by the way, that is the nature of our trading relationship with the United States, in general — that it requires constant work, constant gardening,” she told reporters. “And in this time of a true global pandemic, of a real crisis, it requires particular attention.”

Freeland’s assertive style in dealing with U.S. disputes — including during the NAFTA talks — has often been in contrast with Trudeau’s more-restrained approach.

Trudeau said any U.S. move to dispatch troops to the border would be a mistake, adding: “We certainly hope that they’re not going to go through with that.”

The prime minister steered well clear of any executive-level provocation.

The lighter approach fits with Trudeau’s walk-on-egg-shells strategy for Trump, or at least doing whatever he can to avoid upsetting the unpredictable president.

It hasn’t always gone smoothly. In December, Trump called Trudeau “two-faced” following the release of a viral video that apparently showed the prime minister chattering with other world leaders about the president’s behavior during the NATO summit in London.

When it comes to Covid-19, the next test in the relationship could be on the way. One possibility: the different signals surrounding how and when the two countries — and their states and provinces — intend to reopen their economies and eventually the border.

Last week, Trump showed an eagerness to lift restrictions at the Canada-U.S. border, while Trudeau has repeatedly said his government is far from ready for such a step.

"We'll continue to collaborate, to coordinate, but the reality is that it will still be weeks before we can talk about loosening restrictions," Trudeau said.