PM Trudeau and U.S. President Trump talk trade, security at G7 summit
TAORMINA, Italy — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met one-on-one with Donald Trump Saturday on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Sicily, where they talked all around an elephant in the room the size and shape of North America.
“We talked about how the positive relationship between Canada and the United States is one that we have to enhance and strengthen for the benefit of both of our citizens,” Trudeau told reporters Saturday in the medieval town of Taormina, Italy.
That sounds a lot like the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is a growing source of tension between Ottawa and Washington, D.C., as last week Trump began the countdown to renegotiate its terms.
The rules of that 90-day period prevent the two leaders from talking in any detail about issues that would be on the NAFTA table, so, according to a Canadian government official, neither Trudeau nor Trump once uttered the acronym during their 30-minute information conversation.