After a week of accusations and counter-accusations over tariffs, President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are talking again — specifically about getting back to the NAFTA negotiating table.
As CBC News reports, according to a highly placed source in the Trudeau government, who asked to speak to reporters on background, Trump and Trudeau spoke amicably at the G7 summit in on Friday in Quebec City.
“The prime minister and the president had a very positive, productive meeting and it lasted longer than originally scheduled,” the spokesperson told reporters gathered at the summit.
The two leaders reportedly agreed to get back to work on NAFTA negotiations. “They did discuss NAFTA at length and they discussed the future of NAFTA, and I would say they also talked about accelerating the talks.”
The rapprochement represents a break from the last week of adversarial statements from both men, with Trump claiming Canada is “hurting our Farmers, killing our agriculture” with massive tariffs and Trudeau calling-out Trump for suggesting Canada is a national security risk when the militaries of the two countries are so interwoven.
Although Trump was continuing to tweet angry rhetoric at both Trudeau and Canada on the eve of the G7 summit, Trump suggested to reporters that relations between Canada and the U.S. were never better.
After his bilateral meeting with Trudeau, Trump called the session “very positive” and expressed optimism for the future of NAFTA.
“We had a very positive meeting a little while ago on NAFTA. So this is turning out to be an interesting day. But we had a very, very good meeting on NAFTA with Justin and his representatives,” Trump told reporters.