{"id":89401,"date":"2017-02-14T00:02:53","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T05:02:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=89401"},"modified":"2017-02-14T00:02:53","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T05:02:53","slug":"pierre-trudeau-ivanka-trump-and-how-the-white-house-meeting-got-set-up-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/02\/14\/pierre-trudeau-ivanka-trump-and-how-the-white-house-meeting-got-set-up-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Pierre Trudeau, Ivanka Trump, and how the White House meeting got set up"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The president’s daughter was seated next to Trudeau at a round-table Monday. Two women inside the meeting said Ivanka Trump raised maternal leave, and access to credit. (Photo: Ivanka Trump\/ Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2013The relationship-building effort with Donald Trump began within hours of his stunning election win. After the shocks in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, came a smaller surprise in a phone chat.<\/p>\n

It was with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.<\/p>\n

The day after the election, Trump told the prime minister that he admired his dad, Pierre, and they’d actually met once \u2013 Trump spoke at a 1981 New York City event where the elder Trudeau was the guest of honour.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren’t aware of it,\u201d said a Canadian official.<\/p>\n

Trudeau’s team figured a meeting of two public figures must have wound up in a photo, somewhere: \u201cWe looked for it,\u201d said the official. They eventually found it through Library and Archives Canada, a black-and-white image of the prime minister’s dad sitting down, and Trump speaking from a podium.<\/p>\n

A series of New York meetings followed.<\/p>\n

Uncertainty lingered for months about the date of a Trudeau-Trump meeting because the Canadian side expressed a willingness to forego a quick get-together, in favour of taking the time to set a detailed program.<\/p>\n

After a campaign where the president-elect had railed against NAFTA, Trudeau’s team said it wanted to send signals immediately to reassure business that the Canada-U.S. relationship remained on stable footing.<\/p>\n

Someone from the Canadian side said the message to Trump’s team was: Our country will be watching this closely. \u201c(This meeting) is a much bigger deal in Canada than it is in the United States,\u201d was the message to Trump’s team.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Canadian news sites were filled with stories about the meeting Monday. The event made hardly a ripple in the U.S.<\/p>\n

So the Canadians and Americans set about discussing issues that hadn’t gotten any attention in the U.S. election, but which matter in Canada. Some of these issues are now enshrined in a joint statement of principles, released Monday by Canada and the U.S.<\/p>\n

The statement refers to:<\/p>\n

\u2013Advancing bilateral trade.<\/p>\n

\u2013Expanding customs preclearance projects at the Canada-U.S. border, to get trade and goods through faster.<\/p>\n

\u2013The U.S. valuing Canada’s military contributions, including fighting ISIL and protecting Latvia.<\/p>\n

\u2013Improving labour mobility, including out-of-date visa rules that make it hard for companies to send employees across the border.<\/p>\n

\u2013A reference to infrastructure co-operation, which could give some Canadian companies hope of a respite from Trump’s promised Buy American provisions.<\/p>\n

None of these were hot issues in the U.S. election. But now they’re Trump’s policies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe (didn’t) want to just say nice things,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe (wanted) to solve some issues…. The big thing for us is (we wanted) to calm some nervous people.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Canada reshuffled its cabinet with Canada-U.S. relations the new priority No. 1. Chrystia Freeland became foreign minister, her chief of staff went to PMO to head up a U.S. desk, and the ambassador to Washington, David MacNaughton, began working possible allies in the U.S., like certain industry and labour groups, to speak up on behalf of trade with Canada.<\/p>\n

They got to know their interlocutors \u2013 one called it a constructive relationship, across the board.<\/p>\n

That includes Trump’s polarizing master strategist Steve Bannon. Bannon has spent years railing against multiculturalism and pro-globalization elites who attend summits at Davos, Switzerland, and warns of a multi-generational global war against radical Islam. That may not sound like a natural partner for Canada’s prime minister.<\/p>\n

Yet sources say he was constructive, too.<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago, Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford, had another idea: Why not work with Trump’s daughter on women’s issues? She suggested it to Ivanka Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner.<\/p>\n

The White House was looking for an opportunity to get the first daughter working on women’s issues, after pushing her dad to make maternal leave a campaign promise: \u201cWe gave them (this one).\u201d<\/p>\n

The president’s daughter was seated next to Trudeau at a round-table Monday. Two women inside the meeting said Ivanka Trump raised maternal leave, and access to credit.<\/p>\n

At the meeting, Trudeau stressed the value of multi-country North American supply chains; Trump took an interest when one business leader spoke about Canada’s public-private partnership model for funding new infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n

Some recent Canadian moves have caused disquietude on the left.<\/p>\n

A number of social media comments were aghast about Canada giving the president’s daughter a platform, amid a furor over travel restrictions, while her clothing brand was being dumped by Nordstrom.<\/p>\n

There were equally annoyed comments about the sight of Bannon walking and laughing with Trudeau’s principal secretary at the White House on Monday.<\/p>\n

On the right, the Conservatives warned that it’s too early to cry victory: Interim leader Rona Ambrose said Trump’s promised tweaks to NAFTA could still threaten Canadian interests.<\/p>\n

But two women inside the meeting came away sounding positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great initiative,\u201d said Linda Hasenfratz, the CEO of Linamar Corp, of the project with Ivanka Trump. \u201cIt’s absolutely the right thing, to build common ground. If you’re trying to build a relationship with someone you do it by finding common ground. What do you both believe in? What’s important to both of you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Annette Verschuren, CEO of energy-storage company NRstor Inc., and former head of Home Depot Canada, said of the project with Ivanka: \u201cI think it’s very smart… We can go look for the negatives. We can find all kinds, in everything. But we operate in a nation that is extraordinarily dependent on, and has a strong relationship with, the United States. Many, many jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2013The relationship-building effort with Donald Trump began within hours of his stunning election win. After the shocks in Wisconsin, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":89403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,483,17],"tags":[13459,14087,11237],"class_list":["post-89401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-politics","category-news-w","tag-ivanka-trump","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-prime-minister-justin-trudeau","mauthors-alexander-panetta","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}