In her resignation letter, Freeland acknowledged that last Friday, Trudeau told her he no longer wanted her to serve as finance minister, but he did offer her another Cabinet position. She resigned hours before she was set to deliver a major speech about the country’s finances.“Upon reflection, I have concluded that the only honest and viable path is for me to resign from the Cabinet,” she wrote.
Freeland chose to resign instead of changing positions because she said the decision “made clear that I no longer credibly enjoy” his full confidence. “We need to take that threat extremely seriously,” she wrote in her resignation letter regarding Trump’s warning that he could pursue a 25% tariff. Trump indicated the 25% tariffs are meant to coerce the United States’s two neighbors to stop the flow of narcotics and illegal immigrants into the U.S.
Trump and Trudeau met at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida property, shortly after the initial tariff threat by the president-elect. Trump called it a “very productive meeting,” while Trudeau said they had an “excellent conversation.”