Canada learned lessons from Trump's first term -- and vice versa, says ambassador

It's a truism in foreign-policy circles that the world learned some hard lessons from Donald Trump's volatile first term as U.S. president. But as the prospect of a second term looms, could it also be true that Trump left the White House with a better grasp of Canada's relationship with the United States?

It's a truism in foreign-policy circles that the world learned some hard lessons from Donald Trump's volatile first term as U.S. president.

But as the prospect of a second term looms, could it also be true that the notoriously stubborn Trump and his advisers left the White House with a better grasp of Canada's relationship with -- and importance to -- the United States?

"Yeah, I think so -- I do," said Kirsten Hillman, Canada's envoy in Washington.

For starters, there was the arduous 18-month renegotiation of NAFTA, in which even America's self-proclaimed champion dealmaker has long suggested Canada proved a more worthy adversary than he expected.

But Trump was also president in early 2020, when COVID-19 was beginning to flourish on North American soil, soon to blossom into a global crisis that showed the U.S. a thing or two about its largest trading partner.

"When we restricted movement on our border, it took less than a day for people to fully understand the implications," Hillman said.

They promptly discovered just how much traffic, travel and commerce crossed the Canada-U.S. border each day, "and therefore, as a consequence, (came to) fully appreciate the degree to which we are integrated and mutually supportive."