PHOTOS: Trump's relationship with Trudeau after a year in office
It’s been a year since Donald Trump officially took over the White House, a day that marked a new era in U.S. politics.
Former prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, the father of current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, once said living beside the U.S. was in some ways like “sleeping with an elephant … one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”
The analogy still holds relevance in 2018. As the U.S. makes decisions that transcends borders under U.S. President Trump, Canada is being forced to re-evaluate its own place in the world. Trump has already pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord and the Trans Pacific Partnership, and he’s also threatened to pull the plug on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) if a new deal can’t be reached.
Trudeau has travelled to Washington, D.C., multiple times to meet with Trump. Trade – more specifically the future of NAFTA – remains a top concern for the leaders of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Trump has been a vocal critic of trilateral agreement, but he’s also expressed a willingness to do a free trade deal with Canada.
Trump and Trudeau have not only appeared together at the White House, but they’ve also taken part in international meetings abroad. Some of these included a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Belgium, a G7 meeting in Italy, a G20 assembly in Germany, Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) meetings in Vietnam and the ASEAN summit in the Philippines.
In 2017, Trump became the first U.S. president in 40 years to not visit Canada during his first calendar year in office, the Toronto Star reports. He is scheduled to make his first presidential trip across the 49th parallel this June for a G7 summit in La Malbaie, Que., which is nearly 150 kilometres northeast of Quebec City.