'We need to address those issues': Alberta Premier Danielle Smith won't denounce Trump tariff threat

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says Canada should address U.S. president-elect Donald Trump's border concerns in the next two months, before he's back in the White House, instead of comparing our situation to Mexico's and arguing the tariff threats are unjustified.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says Canada should address U.S. president-elect Donald Trump's border concerns in the next two months, before he's back in the White House, instead of comparing our situation to Mexico's and arguing the tariff threats are unjustified.

"We need to address those issues," Smith told CTV News Channel's Power Play host Vassy Kapelos in an interview on Tuesday. "We can't downplay them, and we can't play the 'yeah, but' game, and we can't pretend that the economic interests are going to override those very legitimate interests."

Trump stated in a social media post Monday night he’d implement 25 per cent tariffs on all imports from Canada and Mexico, until the two countries fix the "long simmering problem" of drugs and illegal immigrants crossing into the United States.

While Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called the move "unjustified" in a press conference on Parliament Hill Tuesday, Smith refused to make the same classification.

Instead, she said, Canada has "got to address the issues that have been identified as pressure points and alleviate them," pointing specifically to the border, worries China is using Mexico as a backdoor into North American free trade, and defence spending as particular concerns of Trump's.

The majority of what Alberta sends to the U.S. is energy exports. And Smith said in a previous interview with CTV's Question Period that Alberta has a $188-billion trade relationship with the United States.

In Tuesday's interview, the premier said the impact of the tariffs on her province would be "enormous" and "incredibly damaging."