Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly says preparations for the next U.S. president have been underway for months in Canada as American voters decide who will replace Joe Biden in the White House.
“We have been preparing for this for several months, not only in the United States but through our diplomatic networks around the world,” Jolie told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday.
“Regardless of who the American people decide on, this government will be able to address the issues that matter to Canadians.”
Today is the last day voters can cast their votes in the tight presidential election between Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, International Trade Minister Mary Ng, Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Immigration Minister Mark Miller said Canada stands ready to work with whoever the American people choose.
Jolie’s comments come as one of Trump’s former ambassadors to Canada says Canada is bracing for a potentially more adversarial bilateral relationship with the United States if her former boss wins. It was issued in response to the statement that it was necessary.
“Canada, they need to tighten up and the whole world needs to tighten up as President Trump continues his policies from 2016. We will make America great again and get back to where we were during the Trump presidency. We’re going to bring it back,” Kelly Craft told Radio-Canada in an interview Sunday.
At a NATO summit earlier this year, Prime Minister Trudeau vowed to meet spending targets in the defense pact that Canada has long ignored. Prime Minister Trudeau said Canada will spend 2% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on its military by 2032.
Craft said that’s still not enough, and he expects President Trump to push for more defense spending on a shorter timeline.
Asked Tuesday about the possibility of accelerating military spending, Joly didn’t take a stance, saying Canada “will abide by our obligations to our NATO allies.”
Trade is likely to be a major issue if President Trump returns to the Oval Office. He has promised to impose a minimum 10% tariff on all imports into the U.S., but given that an estimated $3.6 billion in goods cross the border every day, Canadian businesses and the jobs there This will be a devastating development for the workers who are being forced to do so.
Jolly maintained that Ottawa has sought to develop important relationships with local and provincial-level officials to help advocate for the continued open trade between the two countries.
“We now have deep relationships at many levels of American society,” she said.
Prime Minister Trudeau asked about potential concerns
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau echoed Jolie’s remarks during Tuesday’s question period, saying he was ready to work with whoever wins.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been discussing the potential outcome behind the scenes with his advisers and has been briefed by Canadian security officials on the possibility of a violent uprising in the United States as a result of the delay, the people said.
If the results are as close as polls suggest and mail-in voting is the deciding factor, there will be no clear winner Tuesday night. It’s a repeat of the experience during the 2020 election, when Biden was not declared the winner until days later. After Election Day.
Trump took advantage of the delay and declared victory before many states finalized their results.
The 2020 postponement sparked protests and weeks of unrest culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Prime Minister Trudeau dodged a question about whether he was concerned about the possibility of violence.
“My job as Prime Minister of Canada is to work with whoever the American people elect as president, and that’s exactly what I will continue to do,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his job is to work with the person Americans elect as their next president and stand up for Canadians.
The FBI announced Tuesday that it has heard numerous reports of bomb threats at polling places across the country, but none are reliable.
“The FBI is aware of bomb threats against polling places in multiple states, many of which appear to be coming from Russian email domains. So far, all threats have been determined to be credible. “This has not been done,” the department said in a statement.
The FBI has not identified the states in question, but Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said earlier Tuesday that the state’s election process had cleared up some bomb threats allegedly coming from Russia.
Officials in Fulton County, Georgia, said they received “multiple calls” and two polling places were briefly closed due to threats.
Officials continue to warn that unprecedented levels of foreign influence and disinformation will continue beyond Election Day.
