WASHINGTON—It was to be a whirlwind visit from the get-go. Literally.
As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau left Ottawa, officials said his plane would land at Dulles airport not Andrews military base as planned, due to high winds.
Trudeau heads to the U.S capital today in a full-on charm offensive to persuade U.S. President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans that Canada is a trusted trade and security ally.
After landing in Washington, Trudeau spends much of the one-day visit Monday with Trump first at bilateral meetings at the White House, then a business roundtable with female CEOs and business leaders from both sides of the border before holding a joint news conference in the West Wing.
Trudeau will later head to Capitol Hill to meet with Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, and also with Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.
Notably, Trudeau’s agenda does not include meetings with any Democratic congressional or Senate lawmakers who do not hold majorities in the new reconfigured Washington.
Rather, it is with Trump’s team and party that Trudeau is attempting to find “common ground,” as the prime minister calls it.
Trudeau’s team “reached out” to propose a joint task force on advancing women in the workplace, a policy dear to the heart of Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump.
A clothing executive who has no formal role in the White House unlike her husband Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump is nevertheless a trusted advisor of her father’s, and at the center of concerns about whether Trump and his inner circle are promoting the interests the Trump family businesses from the seat of American power.
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