Two top Canadian ministers met on Friday with members of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s circle in Florida about a border security plan that Canada hopes will ward off Mr. Trump’s threats to impose economically damaging tariffs on imports from the country. But the ministers returned home without any assurances.
The meeting was characterized in advance as an attempt to build on a dinner Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago over the Thanksgiving weekend as well as on a recent telephone conversation between members of Mr. Trudeau’s cabinet and Thomas D. Homan, Mr. Trump’s designated border czar.
Mélanie Joly, Canada’s foreign minister, and Dominic LeBlanc, its finance minister, arrived in Florida on Thursday evening for the session with Howard Lutnick, Mr. Trump’s choice for commerce secretary, and former Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, the president-elect’s pick to run the Interior Department who would also coordinate energy policy.
Mr. Trump has said he will impose 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada when he takes office in January if the country does not reduce the flow of migrants and fentanyl into the United States. Such a move could be devastating for Canada, whose economy depends heavily on exports to the United States.
But on at least one occasion, Mr. Trump has suggested that his tariff plan may have less to do with border security than with his desire to eliminate the $50 billion trade deficit with Canada. Oil and gas exports from Canada account for most of that trade imbalance. Without them, the U.S. generally has a trade surplus with Canada.
Jean-Sébastien Comeau, a spokesman for Mr. LeBlanc, described the Mar-a-Lago session as a “positive, productive meeting” and said that the two nominees “agreed to relay information to President Trump.”
During the meeting, the Canadians outlined their government’s package of border security measures, which they estimated will cost about 1.3 billion Canadian dollars, or $900 million, over several years. In an earlier statement Mr. Comeau said they planned to discuss “the negative impacts that the imposition of 25 percent tariffs on Canadian goods would have on both Canada and the United States.”
The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for information about the meeting.
Mr. Trump has also repeatedly mocked Mr. Trudeau, a U.S. ally, on social media, referring to him as “Governor Justin Trudeau of Canada.”
On Christmas Day, he taunted Mr. Trudeau again, writing in a post on Truth Social that “if Canada was to become our 51st State, their Taxes would be cut by more than 60%, their businesses would immediately double in size, and they would be militarily protected like no other Country anywhere in the World.”
Mr. Trump has mused about other territorial expansions. In recent days, he has called for reclaiming U.S. control over the Panama Canal and “owning” Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.
Mr. Trump is unpopular among Canadians. A poll found that the news story this year that made Canadian respondents “angriest” was about Mr. Trump’s election win, followed by the news of his tariff threat.
On Christmas, Mr. Trump floated the idea that the N.H.L. legend Wayne Gretzky could run to be the next prime minister of Canada, though he added that Mr. Gretzky had no interest in doing so.
Mr. Gretzky, who has publicly supported several Conservative rivals of Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party, and his family attended Mr. Trump’s victory party at his Mar-a-Lago resort after the November election, according to photographs of the event.
Last week, Mr. Trudeau’s hold on power slipped and his political future became uncertain after Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister and finance minister, unexpectedly quit both posts.
Ms. Freeland, who renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement during the first Trump administration, left after Mr. Trudeau said that he was going to move her out of the finance minister job, one of the most important cabinet positions, and into another role.
In a blistering resignation letter, Ms. Freeland said she was frustrated with recent economic moves made by Mr. Trudeau’s government, including the lifting of a federal sales tax on some items during the holiday season. She called them “political gimmicks” that would weaken Canada’s economy at a moment when the country needed to prepare itself for potential tariffs.
Mr. Trump derided Ms. Freeland, with whom he had clashed during the NAFTA negotiations, after she stepped down. “Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals which are good for the very unhappy citizens of Canada,” he wrote on social media. “She will not be missed!!!”
Mr. LeBlanc, a confidant of Mr. Trudeau’s, has since become finance minister. He had previously been minister of public safety.
In the aftermath, a growing number of Liberal members of Parliament called for Mr. Trudeau to quit as their leader and, thus, as prime minister. All of the opposition parties, including the New Democrats, Mr. Trudeau’s former allies, are now vowing to bring down his government when Parliament resumes at the end of January.
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