Ambassador: Trump knows Canada ‘in a way he didn’t before’ [Video]

Canada’s ambassador to the United States — and co-lead of the federal government’s Team Canada war room — says U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has a different understanding of the bilateral relationship than he did during his first term in the White House.

Trump, throughout this latest election campaign, has threatened to impose across-the-board tariffs on imports, to reopen America’s trilateral free-trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, and to launch a mass deportation operation, raising fears of an exodus to Canada.

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Despite that, Ambassador Kirsten Hillman told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos in an interview airing Sunday that trade negotiations during Trump’s first term, coupled with navigating the physical border during the COVID-19 pandemic, “sensitized” the president-elect to the uniqueness of Canada-U.S. relations.

“I think the difference is that he himself knows the importance …