Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said yesterday that he couldn’t imagine Trump damaging the car industry of the US by imposing auto tariffs. He said, “I have a hard time accepting that any leader might do the kind of damage to his own auto industry that would happen if he were to bring in such a tariff on Canadian auto manufacturers, given the integration of the parts supply chains or the auto supply chains through the Canada-U.S. border.”
Trudeau tried to tone down Trump’s personal attack on him. He said that “I’m not in a position to opine on motivations of the president. I’m going to stay focused on the relationship that we’re building, on defending Canada’s interests, on looking for ways to further push the benefits of improving and modernizing NAFTA … in all three of our countries.”
Accord to a recent poll by Ipsos conducted between June 13-15, approval rating of Trudeau jumped to 50%, with 12% of Canadian strongly supporting him and 39% somewhat supporting. That’s a notable increase from the low of 44% at the end of March. That came after Trump’s personal attack on Trudeau saying that he acted so “meek and mild” during the G7 meeting. And, Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro said “there is a special place in hell” for Trudeau.
