Canada’s answer to Trump 2.0 worries? Everything’s fine.

OTTAWA — When Donald Trump returns to the White House, Canada will stare down the possibility of a 20 percent tariff, an influx of asylum seekers and no end of hassle over its lackluster defense spending.

Justin Trudeau's response in the days since Trump's emphatic victory: Everything is fine.

Canada’s prime minister has unleashed a tiger team of texters — top ministers and senior Trudeau aides who appear tighter with their U.S. counterparts than Trudeau is with Trump.

“They’re going to have to think through very carefully who it is that had the best personal relationship — forget professional,” former U.S. Ambassador Bruce Heyman said last week.

“You have to develop these relationships pretty quickly, and you’re gonna have to also figure out — because Donald Trump is so transactional — what is it you give for what it is you want to get. That’s how he thinks,” he added.

Trudeau and his team spent the week working to ease the worries of businesses, including in Canada's oil patch, labor leaders and provincial premiers.

“A lot of Canadians have been anxious this week. A lot of Canadians were anxious throughout the night, and I want to say with utter sincerity and conviction to Canadians that Canada will be absolutely fine,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters on the morning after Trump's win.

Trudeau’s team is trying to frame the Liberals as the best party to deal with Trump, since they’ve done it before.

The U.S. election has, for now, quelled calls from any Liberals who want the unpopular incumbent to resign so that the party can pick a new leader ahead of the next election. Trudeau’s government is up against the same challenge that foiled Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign: winning back voters after years of inflation.

Trudeau’s relationship with Trump is complicated. In 2019, the prime minister was caught on a hot mic joking about the president, leading Trump to blast Trudeau as “two-faced.” In 2022, Trump called Trudeau a “far-left lunatic,” and this year he repeated a false claim that the prime minister could be Fidel Castro’s son.

While Trump was out of office, Trudeau took shots at the MAGA movement and even blamed it for eroding support of Ukraine.

Now that Trump is back, Freeland has pointed out repeatedly that Canada has been here before.

In the early days of Trump's presidency, he ripped up the North American Free Trade Agreement, calling it “the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere.” He slapped tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel. The deputy prime minister worked with Robert Lighthizer, then United States trade representative, to renegotiate the deal. They two remain close and met over the summer. They were in touch on Election Day and the days around it, Freeland said.

They’ve recently found common cause confronting Chinese imports, including critical minerals, which Canada has an abundance of and believes can be used as leverage to help grow North American defense and energy sectors.

“I do take everything that President Trump says very seriously,” Freeland said. “That’s why we’ve been very conscientious, very systematic about maintaining our relationship.”

Trudeau just rebooted a Cabinet committee to focus specifically on the Canada-U.S. relationship. It last met during Trump's first term and is newly packed with senior ministers whose jobs rely on American relationships.

Some have been on the ground in the U.S. for months engaging with local and state leaders, hoping they will be best positioned to defend Canada’s interests in Congress.

“Let’s be calm,” said Industry Minister Fran?ois-Philippe Champagne, one of two ministers who for months has coordinated a "Team Canada" engagement strategy. As of August they’d traveled to 33 states and met with 42 governors.

Champagne urged Canadians to “take a deep breath.”

“The work that we have done is paying off. They understand how strategically important we are in critical minerals, in semiconductors, in the energy sector. We’ll make the case for Canada. We know the folks, they’re already texting us,” he said.

He wouldn’t identify his specific contacts but insisted they're in Trump’s inner circle.

Trudeau’s top Cabinet ministers spent this week pointing to the Americans in their rolodexes, contacts from Trump’s previous administration. Meanwhile, members of the prime minister’s team worked the phone lines trying to get their boss connected to the president-elect.

Canada, often first on the call list of newly elected presidents, fell at least behind India in the queue.

Trudeau and Trump eventually talked Wednesday around 7 p.m., after leaders from Italy, Ukraine, Hungary and the United Kingdom had posted about their calls.

A senior official familiar with the conversation, granted anonymity to speak freely, framed the exchange as positive.

“We had a great relationship and got a lot done together,” Trump said to Trudeau, according to the official.

Trudeau compared Trump’s win to his own father's comeback win after an election loss. Trump took joy in that and called former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau “a fantastic guy,” the official said.

The two discussed trade, supply chains, North American security and fentanyl, which is plaguing both sides of the border through substances trafficked from China.

Trudeau’s government believes it has more leverage this time around, unlike in 2016 when Ottawa was blindsided by Trump’s win.

“We’ve moved from just being the friendly neighbor of the north to being a strategic partner, and they understand,” said Champagne.

Canada remains the biggest export market for the U.S, sending nearly C$600 billion last year in goods. That’s bigger than China, Japan, the United Kingdom and France combined, Freeland said on Friday.

The Liberal government wants to work with the Trump administration on security, supply chain resiliency and growth, but Trudeau’s Cabinet is adamant they will put domestic interests first.

“Canada is independent from the United States and we adopt our own laws and regulations,” Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault told reporters this week. “We’re not a carbon copy of the United States, and we won’t be.”

Its self interest includes its “unwavering and unequivocal” support for Ukraine, which has a large diaspora community in Canada. Trump has promised to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but hasn’t said how.

Following Trump’s win, Trudeau and his Cabinet have intensified calls with their Ukrainian counterparts and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who said this week that Trump is “right” about the need for certain members to spend more on defense.

And a senior Trudeau minister signaled a rhetorical shift as the government faces inevitable calls to accelerate defense spending.

In an interview with CBC News this week, Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly insisted Canada would reach its NATO spending target. She described herself as "hawkish" on the file — a new word for a government that rarely, if ever, describes itself in those terms.

Trudeau’s government hopes to sound undaunted.

“In my experience, President Trump respects strength, and he respects people and countries who are strong and clear in defending their countries — in defending their national interest,” Freeland said on Friday on the Hill.

“That’s what I’ve always done, and that’s what I will continue to do.”