Foreign Affairs

Trudeau Says Trump Is Willing To Change his Mind ‘Unlike Many Politicians’

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday that, “unlike most politicians,” President Donald Trump’s lack of political ideology makes him open to changing his mind.

“I’ve learned that he listens,” Trudeau told reporters about Trump’s managing style. “He is a little bit unlike many politicians,” he added, referring to the Republican president’s unorthodox political leanings.

Trudeau suggested that most politicians are “trained” to hold a position come hell or high water, meaning they won’t budge from their positions even in the face of convincing counter arguments. This doesn’t seem to be Trump’s strategy.

“I think there’s a challenge in that for electors, but there’s also an opportunity in that for people who engage with him to try and work to achieve a beneficial outcome,” Trudeau said.

Trump and Trudeau met February in Washington to hash out disagreements and discuss new areas of opportunities for both the U.S. and Canada. They spoke about the president’s temporary immigration ban, climate change, and his signing of the Keystone XL Pipeline, a thousand-mile-long oil project that Trudeau supports.

Democrats foisted the mantle of climate warrior upon Trudeau after Trump, a climate skeptic, won the White House. Former Vice President Joe Biden said as much after the 2016 presidential election.

“Trudeau and German Chancellor Angela Merkel must fill the void left by a departing Obama administration in the fight against climate change,” Biden told a group of former prime ministers in December.

Trudeau’s new position on Trump is creating animosity among the hordes of environmentalists and liberals who sing the prime minister’s praises.

Bill McKibben, co-founder of environmentalist group 350.org, said on Monday that Trudeau is in league with the former real estate tycoon turned commander-in-chief.

“[W]hen it comes to the defining issue of our day, climate change, he’s a brother to the old orange guy in DC,” McKibben wrote. He said Trudeau was “hard at work pushing for new pipelines through Canada and the US to carry yet more oil out of Alberta’s tar sands, which is one of the greatest climate disasters on the planet.”

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