Two top Canadian ministers headed to President-elect Trump’s home in Florida on Thursday to talk about border security and trade as the incoming president’s inauguration day nears.

New Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly will be in Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday for the talks this week, Jean-Sébastien Comeau, a spokesperson for LeBlanc, told the Associated Press.

Comeau said that LeBlanc alongside Joly will meet with Tom Homan, Trump’s incoming “border czar,” after Christmas to discuss Canada’s plan to secure the border as part of a bid to avoid sweeping tariffs.

The spokesperson said LeBlanc and Joly “look forward to building on the discussions that took place when the Prime Minister met with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago last month, as well as the positive call the Ministers held with Mr. Tom Homan earlier this month.”

TRUMP SUGGESTS CANADA BECOME 51ST STATE AFTER TRUDEAU SAID TARIFF WOULD KILL ECONOMY: SOURCES

Along with discussing border security, the Canadian leaders hope to center talks on fentanyl trafficking and “negative impacts” of Trump’s tariffs on goods.

“The Ministers intend to focus on Canada’s efforts to combat fentanyl trafficking and illegal migration and the measures outlined in Canada’s Border Plan, as well as the negative impacts that the imposition of 25% tariffs on Canadian goods would have on both Canada and the United States,” Comeau added in a statement.

Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on imports from Canada when he takes office in January unless the country reduces the flow of migrants and fentanyl into the U.S.

US President Donald Trump (R) shakes hands with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a meeting at Winfield House, London on Dec. 3, 2019. (Getty Images)

Trump has made snide remarks about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on social media, referring to the ally as “Governor Justin Trudeau of Canada.”

TRUMP WEIGHS IN ON POLITICAL TURMOIL IN THE ‘GREAT STATE OF CANADA,’ TROLLS ‘GOVERNOR JUSTIN TRUDEAU’

The statement on Christmas Day came after Trump suggested to Trudeau that if tariffs on Canada would kill its economy, then perhaps Canada should become the 51st U.S. state. 

Canadian flag. ( Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images)

Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on Canadian imports, meanwhile, have unnerved Canada, which is highly integrated with the U.S. economy. 

About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports as well. 

Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian – or $2.7 billion U.S. – worth of goods and services cross the border each day. Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Trump team for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Bob Iger wants out of the culture wars.

Walt Disney Co. and its chief executive have made a sharp pivot since doubling down on diversity and inclusion efforts in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis four and a half years ago. At the time, Disney’s top executives, including then-Chairman Iger, vowed in a message to employees: “We intend to keep the conversation going … for as long as it takes to bring about real change.”

The Magic Kingdom dropped its pomp greeting to fans for its nightly fireworks display. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” became a gender-neutral salutation to “dreamers of all ages.” Pixar’s animated movie, “Lightyear,” included a brief kiss between two women characters; and Disney’s animated film, “Strange World,” featured the company’s first biracial queer teen hero.

But in the past week, Disney acknowledged that a transgender athlete storyline had been removed from an upcoming Pixar animated series, “Win or Lose,” about a middle-school softball team. In a statement, Disney said it recognized “many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline.”

And Iger signed off on the settlement of a high-profile defamation lawsuit brought last spring by President-elect Donald Trump, amid howls from journalists that the owner of ABC News had caved to political pressure.

Disney agreed to pay $1 million for Trump’s legal fees and donate another $15 million for Trump’s future presidential library.

Trump sued ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos last spring after the journalist asserted during an on-air interview that a civil court jury had found Trump “liable for rape” in a case brought by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. Instead, New York jurors determined Trump was liable for “sexual abuse.”

Some First Amendment experts believed ABC had a winning case, in part, because of a high hurdle for public officials to prove defamation.

The network “might well have prevailed if they had hung in there,” prominent journalist Margaret Sullivan wrote in a Substack opinion piece. “Instead, this outcome encourages Trump in his attacks on the press — and he needs no encouragement.”

Disney declined to comment for this story or make Iger available for an interview.

People close to the company, who were not authorized to comment, said Disney’s general counsel had recommended the settlement with Trump and that the decision to remove the transgender storyline from “Win or Lose” had been made months earlier.

A bruising fight with DeSantis

Disney’s retrenchment comes nearly three years after it found itself sinking in political quicksand.

In early 2022, Disney became a target for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after then-Chief Executive Bob Chapek waffled on a response to a Florida law aimed at preventing classroom discussions about sexual identity. Chapek’s instinct was to stay out of the fray and he initially defended the company’s initial silence, saying in a letter to Disney employees that corporate statements “do very little to change outcomes or minds.”

Such proclamations are “often weaponized by one side or the other to further divide and inflame,” Chapek wrote.

But after loud protests from employees and activists — and a Twitter post from then-retired Iger, who warned the Florida legislation “will put vulnerable, young LGBTQ people in jeopardy” — Chapek reversed course.

DeSantis seized on Disney’s shifting stance and branded the company as “woke.”

In conservative circles, the pejorative label stuck.

“When you assign a private entity to a political team, then very quickly people will begin to view things in that light,” said Michael Binder, a University of North Florida political science professor who studied the Disney-DeSantis dispute.

Iger, who returned as chief executive two years ago to replace Chapek, recognized the existential threat.

“Our primary mission needs to be to entertain,” Iger said during the company’s 2023 investor meeting. “It should not be agenda-driven.”

Iger increasingly has stressed the importance of steering the company away from overt political messaging.

“The stories you tell have to really reflect the audience that you’re trying to reach but that audience, because they are so diverse … can be turned off by certain things,” Iger said during an April appearance on CNBC. “We just have to be more sensitive to the interests of a broad audience. It’s not easy.”

Disney’s nearly two-year fight with DeSantis was bruising.

“DeSantis was using Disney as a political foil to make a case for his run for presidency,” said Binder, the director of University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab. “That was not something that we had seen before: Governors and elected officials outwardly attacking private companies, particularly a Republican going after a company.”

University researchers found DeSantis’ “woke” campaign against Disney had gained traction, at least among conservatives — despite the fact that Disney has long been one of Florida’s largest employers and a pillar of its tourism economy.

In a public opinion poll in early 2023 of Florida registered voters, the Public Opinion Research Lab found that only about 27% of Republicans in the state had a “favorable” view of Disney. Meanwhile, 76% of the Democrats polled were fans of the Mouse House.

“There was a huge split, and that’s not great for a company that’s trying to market to everybody,” Binder said.

Republican lawmakers closed ranks with DeSantis and Disney lost its unique land-use authority in Central Florida. Disney filed a First Amendment lawsuit the following year, arguing that DeSantis and state Republicans had waged a concerted campaign to punish Disney for exercising its speech rights to criticize Florida’s anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

Earlier this year, a federal judge threw out Disney’s First Amendment lawsuit.

Disney settled with Florida, but the DeSantis episode brought into stark relief the hazards of promoting the company’s values to a global audience during polarizing times.

“Disney provides a product: entertainment,” said Charles Elson, a former director at the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. “It shouldn’t be about politics.”

Besides, Elson said, it becomes messy and costly for companies to extricate themselves after taking a political stand.

“When you get into politics, you are making a statement,” Elson said. “And when you get out, that also becomes a statement.”

Iger has long championed Disney’s efforts to diversify its casts and storylines.

The 101-year-old company introduced its first Black princess in 2009. Nearly a decade later, it released the movie “Coco,” which was rich in Latino culture. Its 2018 Marvel film, “Black Panther,” became a juggernaut, earning $1.3 billion in global ticket sales.

The original “Moana,” which was inspired by Polynesian mythology, earned the mantle of most streamed movie on Disney+. The sequel, released over Thanksgiving weekend, has shattered box office records and has already raked in $750 million internationally.

“Our businesses create entertainment, travel and consumer products whose success depends substantially on consumer tastes and preferences that change in often unpredictable ways,” the company said in its most recent annual report.

“Consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brand,” the report added.

A cloudy defamation case

Disney has since joined a growing list of businesses that have opted to stand down rather than antagonize the president-elect — to the dismay of some First Amendment experts who believed Disney could have defeated Trump‘s defamation claims in the ABC News case.

Last year, a federal judge in Florida tossed out a lawsuit Trump filed against CNN, which sought $475 million in punitive damages. Trump claimed his reputation had been sullied by the network’s references to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election as “the Big Lie.”

But defending Stephanopoulos’ statements may have been more fraught, according to people familiar with Disney’s internal deliberations.

Disney’s General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez and other high-level executives grew concerned after the judge in the case last July denied Disney’s motion to dismiss the case, according to one knowledgeable insider. In that ruling, U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga wrote that “a reasonable jury could interpret Stephanopoulos’s statements as defamatory.”

Altonaga was appointed by former President George W. Bush.

Disney also figured it risky to present the case to a jury in South Florida, where Trump is particularly popular, the knowledgeable people said. Polls also have found a growing lack of trust in the news media.

An ‘entertainment-first’ company

Disney lawyers recognized that some legal conservatives might champion the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where three Trump appointments sit. What’s more, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has expressed a desire to overturn the landmark New York Times vs. Sullivan court decision, which would have been at the heart of the ABC News case.

Disney didn’t want to jeopardize 60 years of press freedoms bestowed through that decision. Not to mention the harm to Disney’s and ABC’s image by trying to withstand Trump broadsides during his second term. CNN, in particular, sustained reputational damage after dueling with Trump, who labeled the cable news channel “fake news.”

“You don’t want to get in a fight with the head of a government that regulates you,” Elson said. “Politics is bad for business.”

Disney is trying to walk — but not cross — the line. During its meeting with shareholders earlier this year, Iger said he believes Disney has “a responsibility to do good in the world.”

“The Disney company can have a positive impact on the world … fostering acceptance and understanding of … people of all different types,” Iger told CNBC last spring. “But we need to be an entertainment-first company.”

President-elect Donald Trump suggested on Wednesday that the U.S. could take control of Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal—an unexpected Christmas Day message that has sparked concerns among world leaders in recent days as they scramble to prepare for Trump’s second White House term.

In a Wednesday post on the platform Truth Social, Trump wished a “Merry Christmas to all,” including to the “wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal,” before moving on to take aim at Canada and Greenland as well, which he suggested again could be better off under U.S. governance.

Trump reiterated his claim that U.S. shippers are being forced to pay “ridiculous” and “exorbitant” prices to navigate the Panama Canal—an artificial, 51-mile waterway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He has suggested, without evidence, that Chinese interests are gaining outsize influence over the waterway, something Panamanian leaders have steadfastly denied.

TRUMP FLOATS IDEA OF US RECLAIMING PANAMA CANAL: ‘FOOLISHLY GAVE IT AWAY’

In his Truth Social post Wednesday, Trump also mockingly referred to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “governor” reiterating his recent suggestion that Canada should be turned into a U.S. state. 

“If Canada was to become our 51st state, their taxes would be cut by more than 60%, their businesses would immediately double in size, and they would be militarily protected like no other country anywhere in the world,” Trump said.

Finally, the president-elect turned his attention to Greenland; an autonomous, geographically important Arctic location rife with natural resources, including rare earth minerals.

The U.S., Trump said on Wednesday, “feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for reasons of national security and “global freedom.’

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is seen on Nov. 29, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Bigger picture

Trump’s lengthy Truth Social post did little to assuage the concerns of some world leaders, who have carefully watched Trump’s actions and his statements in recent weeks for clues as to how he might govern in a second term.

The remarks also appear to be at odds with the “America First” policies long espoused by Trump, which seek to prioritize domestic policy rather than expansion or U.S. presence abroad.

Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., echoed Trump’s concerns in an interview Thursday, describing China’s influence in the Panama Canal, and the higher prices incurred by shippers, as a “shot across the bow.” 

“Remember, we have China and Cuba,” Zinke said on “Mornings with Maria.“ “We have Maduro in Venezuela. We have had Russian ships there. And the Panama Canal is critical to our national security. And at present, it is being run by the Chinese Communist Party. So it’s a concern—absolutely.” 

‘AMERICA FIRST’ VS. ‘AMERICA LAST’: WHAT DOES TRUMP’S RETURN MEAN FOR US FOREIGN POLICY?

Homes are illuminated after the sunset in Tasiilaq, Greenland. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana,)

To be sure, it is not the first time Trump has indicated interest in Greenland, a mineral-rich, geographically important territory.

In 2019, then-President Trump told reporters he was “interested” in purchasing Greenland, which he described at the time as “essentially” a “large real estate deal.” The 2019 effort never gained traction, however; and this week, Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede immediately poured cold water on the idea that their territory could be sold to the U.S.

“Greenland is ours,”  Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede said this week, in response to Trump’s suggestion. 

“We are not for sale and will never be for sale,” he said. “We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”

Meanwhile, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino also disputed the notion that U.S. vessels have been singled out or paid higher fees to traverse the Panama Canal—as well as the notion that the U.S., which phased out its ownership beginning in the 1970s, has any right to reassert control over the shipping waypoint. 

In a video posted to social media earlier this week, Mulino reassured his country’s people that the “sovereignty and independence of our country is non-negotiable.”

The Panama Canal is one of the largest and most strategically important commodity shipping waterways in the world. It handles roughly 5% of all global maritime trade and roughly 40% of U.S. container ship traffic. 

Picturesque Lake Gatun, Panama Canal. (Danuta Hamlin)

Recent higher prices are primarily the result of drought and more competition, which sent water levels plummeting last year to their lowest point on record. Though water levels have since rebounded, operators of the canal were forced to temporarily limit vessel traffic and increase costs for ships using the waypoint.

Other factors have also played a role in higher maritime shipping prices.

A series of attacks on vessels in the Red Sea late last year prompted many major commodities shippers, including BP and Equinor, to pause or reroute their shipments away from the Suez Canal. Some opted to reroute supplies via the Cape of Good Hope, adding weeks of additional time to their trips.

The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, incorrectly claimed on social media last week that the Panama Canal cost U.S. taxpayers $15.7 billion. In fact, the higher costs are shouldered by the ships that pass through the waterway, in the form of tolls.  The U.S. government does not subsidize the canal.

‘AMERICA FIRST’ VS. ‘AMERICA LAST’: WHAT DOES TRUMP’S RETURN MEAN FOR US FOREIGN POLICY?

The gate locks on the Panama Canal open for ship traffic in Dec. 2023. Drought conditions have limited the number of vessels that can travel through the canal per day, adding more price pressure for shipping companies.  (Danuta Hamlin)

Panamanian authorities have stressed that the prices are not the result of “unfair” treatment, or capitulation to China or any other nation-state influence.

“The canal has no direct or indirect control from China, nor the European Union, nor the United States or any other power,” Mulino said in his remarks. “As a Panamanian, I reject any manifestation that misrepresents this reality.”

Still, Trump does not appear to be backing down on expansion claims.

“The Panama Canal is considered a VITAL National Asset for the United States, due to its critical role to America’s Economy and National Security,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Sunday. “A secure Panama Canal is crucial for U.S. Commerce, and rapid deployment of the Navy, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and drastically cuts shipping times to U.S. ports.”

“We’re not going to stand for it,” he said. “So, to the officials of Panama, please be guided accordingly.”