After Trump, Trudeau to push free trade in Europe with Germany’s Merkel
OTTAWA — Justin Trudeau arrives in Europe on Thursday and plans to talk more openly about one of the things he didn’t discuss with Donald Trump — the merits of free trade in the face of increasingly hostile, populist opposition.
The prime minister is to deliver his pro-trade message in an address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France on Thursday — a first for a Canadian leader — and to top business leaders a day later in Germany.
On Friday, he’ll be in Berlin for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who wasn’t shy about reminding Trump the day after his surprise victory that Germany and the U.S. were “bound” by common values and that she looked forward to working with him on that basis.
Standing next to Trump in Washington on Monday, Trudeau said it wasn’t his job to lecture foreign leaders when he visits them. He had been asked to comment on Trump’s controversial executive order banning people from seven mainly Muslim countries from entering the U.S.