Canadian diplomats have been speaking with advisers and congressional allies of former U.S. president Donald Trump to lay the groundwork for a strong relationship if Trump returns to the White House next year, Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. says.
Those conversations have been positive, Ambassador Kirsten Hillman notes, and have not been informed by either Trump’s sometimes-frosty relationship with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when he was president, nor by Trudeau and the Liberals recently invoking Trump’s right-wing populism when referring to the Conservatives at home.
“I have not had anyone comment on that to me,” Hillman said when asked about Trudeau’s comments by Eric Sorensen in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Block.
“We tend to focus on results. We tend to focus really on, what (are) the policy issues that are core to Americans and Canadians?”
Those results include the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement during Trump’s first term, which Hillman said is regarded by both American and Canadian officials as “a really important success.” She said politics are not playing into discussions on other shared priorities either.
“My experience is that on those local issues — economic security, environmental security, national security, food security — those are not partisan issues,” she said. “Both Democrats and Republicans want to assure those things for their voters and for their constituents.
“What we do is we talk about the issues. We talk about how those goals of theirs are enhanced by making sure that their partnership with Canada is as strong as it can be.”
Trudeau last month tasked Trade Minister Mary Ng and Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne with collaborating with industry groups, civil society organizations and other levels of government in working on cross-border relations — part of a “Team Canada” approach to ensure relations are kept on track after November’s elections. Hillman and her team in Washington are another key part of the strategy.
While Hillman made clear…
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