Trudeau congratulates Trump on 'decisive' victory

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released a statement early Wednesday morning congratulating Donald Trump on winning back the U.S. presidency.

"Canada and the U.S. have the world's most successful partnership. We are neighbours and friends, united by a shared history, common values and steadfast ties between our peoples. We are also each other's largest trade partners and our economies are deeply intertwined," Trudeau said.

"We look forward to working with president-elect Trump and his administration, including on issues such as trade, investment, and continental peace and security," he said.

Speaking later to reporters on Parliament Hill, Trudeau said Trump won a "decisive" victory in Tuesday's presidential election and its incumbent on Canada to find common ground with the incoming president to "strengthen North American economic opportunities for the middle class" and "protect North America from the many, many challenges that exist around the world."

Trump is on pace to easily win the popular vote and sweep all of the so-called battleground states where the race was expected to be close. That gives him a mandate to push ahead with an agenda that's heavy on protectionist policies, which could have some reverberations for long-time allies, such as Canada.

Trump has promised to slap tariffs on all imports, which experts have said would shave billions of dollars off Canada's GDP.

While he hasn't released many details of this proposed regime, Trump has said there will be a minimum 10 per cent tariff on all imports and an even higher rate of 60 per cent for Chinese-made goods.

He has said slapping a punitive tax on foreign goods will make products from abroad less competitive and spur domestic manufacturing. He's also floated using tariffs as a cudgel to extract trade and other concessions out of countries he's accused of ripping off the U.S.

In the closing days of his presidential campaign, Trump even suggested he'd raise tariffs so high that the U.S. could begin dismantling its income tax system, although some researchers have said that sort of swap would likely leave a huge hole in the budget and be painful for consumers who would be forced to pay much more for some goods.

"The most beautiful word in the dictionary is 'tariff,' it's more beautiful than 'love,' it's more beautiful than anything. This country can become rich with the proper use of tariffs," Trump said in a recent interview with podcaster Joe Rogan.

"I'm for having countries pay us billions and billions and trillions of dollars even," Trump said.

Kelly Craft, Trump's former ambassador to Canada, has said the country should prepare for what could be a more antagonistic bilateral relationship with the U.S. in her old boss's second term.

Trump's focus on building up American manufacturing and making NATO allies spend more on defence means Canada would need to make some policy changes to stay in America's good graces, Craft said.

"Canada, they need to buckle up," she said before Trump's win. "The whole world needs to buckle up because President Trump will continue his policies from 2016. We are going to make America great again and we will be bringing it back to where it was under the Trump presidency."