State leaders bypass Trump in effort to build bridges with Canada
Governors from the five U.S. Northeastern states met with five of their Canadian counterparts for a “sobering discussion” about how President Donald Trump’s “war of economic aggression” is affecting their region, according to a Politico report Tuesday.
The outlet reported the meeting was meant to help strategize “what they can control and lamenting what they cannot. Namely ‘a tweet in the middle of the night,’ as one premier put it.”
“It was a sobering discussion this morning,” Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey (D) said at a press conference about the private meeting.
Maine’s Governor, Janet Mills (D), said, “tourism numbers are down, anywhere between 20 and 60 percent, in all of our states.”
She later added, “It’s not the tariffs that are affecting [Canadians] so much as the hurt pride, and boy, I understand that. We want the Canadian people to know that we cherish our relationships.”
New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D), who was at the meeting, called for healing between the states of the northeast and their Canadian partners. “We have to operate as independent actors in [the energy space] and think of ourselves,” Hochul said.
Politico wrote, “These [states are] paying a price for America’s war of economic aggression.”
New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt said that the American economy needed to feel some pain. “We need a certain person to hear that this is hurting jobs for Americans,” she said, alluding to Trump.
Another Canadian leader told Politico in a private conversation, “Canadians were happy to be reaping the benefit of Trump’s global unpopularity as more tourists and students were coming to Canada rather than the U.S.”
Healey summed up the meeting for reporters, saying, “For the first time, we know that our friends to the north, some of them, are exploring partnerships with other countries that never would have been contemplated or been necessitated without President Trump’s actions.”
She later added, “China is the one winning in all this.”