Five Things We Learned At the Trudeau/Trump Press Conference

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Donald Trump finally met in person. It was the first in-person meeting for the pair since Trump became president and anticipation was high (though, likely a lot higher in Canada).

Would Trump shake Trudeau's hand for 19 minutes straight? Would Trudeau give Trump the Love Actually treatment and shatter the most important relationship Canada has? Would Trump go off on Canada's pretty boy like he did on Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull?

Well, no, none of that happened unfortunately.

From the get go it was pretty clear that we didn't get fun, exciting Trump but the boring, lethargic one who was obviously going through the paces. Both leaders rambled on, at length, about how much Canada and the US love each other and have died in battle together. They spoke about a roundtable they held with female business leaders and talked about how they are going to address the roadblocks women in the workplace face without offering any solutions, and then they took mostly softball questions.

However, it wasn't a total wash. Here are the five things we learned from the Trump Trudeau meeting:

1. Trump is not gonna burn every partner

The second question of the press conference was a doozy: is Trump confident in Canada's border security and Trudeau's refugee huggin' ways?

In his answer, Trump launched into a long rambling answer that included his "very, very large electoral college win." However, he declined to say whether he was nervous about the border and didn't criticize Trudeau's stance on Syrian refugees.

Trump shit on North Korea but not Canada, which is pretty much as good as it gets for Trudeau on this.

2. Trump likes Canada more than Mexico

When asked about NAFTA, Trump pretty much admitted that his rants about the trade agreement are mostly about Mexico, not Canada.

"We have a very outstanding trade relationship with Canada. We'll be tweaking it and doing certain things that will benefit both of our countries," said Trump. "It's a much less severe situation than what has taken place on the southern border.

"On the southern border, for many, many years the transaction was not fair to the United States."

So Canadians, you're not completely fine yet, but breathe a little easier—Mexicans, uh, you know, we're sorry.

3. Trump's got no time for that French talk

When Trump's speech about how much we love each other and are each other's boo 4ever and ever finished up, Trudeau was handed the baton. Canada's leader immediately started going off in English and Trump seemed fine with letting him talk, if maybe a little bored. But then Trudeau started to speak in what must have sounded to Trump like gibberish (aka French).

"The president and myself had a very productive first meeting today, we had the opportunity to get to know each other together," Trudeau said in French.

Trump did not look too happy with this.  Sporting the face of a six grader forced to watch a Ken Burns documentary, Trump awkwardly put in in his in-ear translator and scowled.

4. Canada is not going to lecture other countries about how to govern

When asked about the security justification for President Trump's much derided "Muslim ban," Trudeau responded by dodging the question like a champion.

"The last thing that Canadians expect is for me to come down and lecture another country on how they choose to govern themselves," said Trudeau. "My role, our responsibility, is to continue to govern in such a way that reflects Canadians approach and be a positive example in the world."

Translated: "We don't criticize nuclear powers."

5. Nothing

Seriously, we learned pretty much nothing from this press conference other than Canada and the United States are next to each other.

At least we got a handshake out of it.

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