Trump Bragged About Lying to Justin Trudeau’s Face

This story has been updated to include comment from a spokesperson for Canada's minister of foreign affairs office.

In one of the least surprising news stories in recent times President Donald Trump apparently lied straight to Justin Trudeau’s face and then boasted about it to potential GOP donors.

According to the Washington Post, in a fundraising speech in Missouri Wednesday, Trump told a crowd that he lied to the prime minister about trade deficits during a NAFTA meeting. In Trump’s account of their exchange, the president repeatedly told Trudeau he was wrong in what seems to be a bizarre effort to knock Canada’s leader down a peg. [Full disclosure: this is a transcription of a Trump speech so it’s going to be a little difficult to follow.]

“Trudeau came to see me. He’s a good guy, Justin,” Trump said, according to the Washington Post. “He said, ‘No, no, we have no trade deficit with you, we have none. Donald, please.’ Nice guy, good-looking guy, comes in—‘Donald, we have no trade deficit.’”

Don gets a bit sidetracked talking about how “proud” both the leaders are before launching into his big prank. “I said, ‘Wrong, Justin, you do.’ I didn’t even know. … I had no idea. I just said ‘You’re wrong.’ You know why? Because we’re so stupid. . . . And I thought they were smart. I said, ‘You’re wrong Justin.’”

Trump said both he and Trudeau sent “a guy” to check out the deficits—in his comment Trump said “his guy” agreed and that the US runs a trade deficit of “$17 billion” with Canada. However, according to both the Washington Post and CNN, the US government's own numbers show that the country runs a trade surplus with the Great White North. Indeed, even the 2018 Economic Report of the President (which has been signed by Trump) states that the US runs a surplus with Canada.

It’s an accepted fact that the sitting US president lies with the frequency of a seven-year-old kid but, much like a kiddo, he typically doesn’t admit to his lies. While the president seems to have snitched on himself so that he could brag about putting one over on the Canadian leader, his actions have been widely panned as stupid and meaningless.

In a couple of tweets, Bruce Heyman, the previous US ambassador to Canada, went to town on Trump lying to Trudeau, saying that the actions of the president are “so incredibly detrimental to our relationship with our best friend.”

“Creating a crisis where none existed before is no way to run our country,” he wrote in a follow-up tweet. “Canada is our best friend and don’t ever forget it! We should never put the relationship at risk.”

President Deals responded to the Washington Post’s report Thursday morning on Twitter, stating, “Justin Trudeau of Canada, a very good guy, doesn’t like saying that Canada has a Surplus vs. the US (negotiating), but they do…they almost all do…and that’s how I know!”

Thanks for clearing things up, Don!

In an emailed statement Adam Austen, a spokesperson for Chrystia Freeland, Canada's minister of foreign affairs, confirmed to VICE that the US does have a trade surplus with Canada but did not address Trump's actions directly.

"Canada and the United States have a balanced and mutually beneficial trading relationship," said Austen. "According to their own statistics, the U.S. runs a trade surplus with Canada."

"We are energetically at work modernizing and updating NAFTA to support good jobs and the middle class in Canada, the United States, and Mexico."

It’s unknown exactly how Trump’s mockery of Trudeau went down—if it was all high pitched and screechy or nasally like an 80s villain would mock a nerd—but up here in Canada we know there are far more subtle ways to go about it. However the president did acknowledge that Trudeau was a “good-looking guy,” so at the very least Canada’s ever image-conscious leader can cling to that.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.