What’s at stake if Trump and Trudeau don’t get along?
Posted February 13, 2017 10:46 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Given our proximity to the US border, a lot could be on the line British Columbia as Prime Minister Trudeau meets US President Trump in Washington.
UBC Political Science professor David Moscrop says today’s meeting will likely set the tone for future engagements, so the stakes are high, especially when dealing with a leader as “mercurial” as Donald Trump.
“From a BC perspective, we’re always fighting with the United States over softwood… and certainly if we’re into a situation where the administration wants to get more aggressive and more belligerent, that could be extremely difficult for us,” he says.
Moscrop points out that Trudeau’s team has clearly been preparing for this meeting since Trump took office in November.
If the meeting does go poorly, it wouldn’t be a first for Canada-US relations.
“There’s a story about Lyndon Johnson once lifting Lester Pearson up by the lapels in the oval office because he was really upset with him over Vietnam,” Moscrop says.
John F. Kennedy and John Diefenbaker didn’t get along either, and Richard Nixon wasn’t much of a fan of the Prime Minister’s father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
