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Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will travel to Washington, D.C., on Monday, for a meeting of two close allies who may have contentious disagreements on trade and global warming..

“Strong Canada-US ties help the middle class in both our countries. Monday, I’ll meet @realDonaldTrump in D.C. to keep working for that goal,” Trudeau said in a tweet.

Trudeau has praised Trump for reviving the trans-continental Keystone XL pipeline.  But he has doubled down on his country’s commitment to curbing emissions of gases that contribute to climate change.

Just over two weeks ago, Trudeau praised Canadian women who took part in a continent-wide women’s march directed at the Trump administration.  “Congratulations to the women and men across Canada who came out yesterday to support women’s rights: You keep your government inspired,” Trudeau tweeted.

Trudean and Trump are very different.  Trudeau is son of the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who served 16 years in Canada’s highest elective office.  He is an amateur boxer who has held jobs ranging from secondary school teacher to tavern bouncer.

Trudeau is an outspoken feminist who has named a gender-balanced Cabinet.  Trudeau is surrounded by white guys in White House pictures, and has the most white male administration since the Nixon Administration of the late 1969’s.

In a recent poll, done for the Globe and Mail, Canadians voiced hope that Trudeau will stand up to Trump on such matters as the President’s vow to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.  Canada is the United States’ largest trading partner.

Fifty-eight percent of Canadians surveyed said they would support a trade war with America if Trump imposes new tariffs on Canadian exports.  Fifty-three percent of Canadians opposed cutting Canada’s corporate tax rates to copy business breaks expected from the Trump administration.

“It’s kind of a recognition that there is going to be unavoidable conflict with the Trump administration on trade,” pollster Nik Nanos told the Globe & Mail.

“When Canadians see the type of leadership style from Donald Trump, they realize that the only way to respond to him is assertively and confidently, even if it means a trade war. “

The two countries share the world’s longest peaceful border, from waters of Haro Strait and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to Campobello Island in New Brunswick, where the family of President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a summer estate.

But clouds have often darkened the veneer of sunny relations.

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau allowed Vietnam War resisters to find refuge in Canada.  Nixon despised the elder Trudeau, whose self-assurance contrasted to Nixon’s paranoid insecurity.

A White House tape caught Nixon referring to Pierre Trudeau as an “a******.” To which the elder Trudeau replied, “I’ve been called worse things by better men.”

A tree planted by Nixon on Parliament Hill in Ottawa grew up crooked.

In recent times, an invite for Canada’s then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien to visit President George W. Bush’s Crawford, Texas, ranch was abruptly withdrawn.  Chretien refused to take Canada into the second Iraq War.  A plaint Australian prime minister was instead invited to Crawford.

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, unseated by Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party in 2015, campaigned relentlessly for the Keystone XL pipeline.  The pipeline was held up and them rejected by the Obama administration.

“Harper Man” traveled to a New York meeting with U.S. financiers and called Keystone XL a “no brainer.”

Canadians have treated as an insult the rumor that ex–half term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will be named U.S. Ambassador to Canada.  White House press spokesman Sean Spicer dodged questions on Wednesday, but refused to rule out the possibility.

An interesting  Trump encounter for Monday:  Trudeau will be accompanied by Canada’s Defense Minister Harjit Saijan, a Vancouver-area member of Parliament.  Saijan is a turban-wearing Sikh, but also a tough former Canadian Forces commander at Kandahar in Afghanistan.

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