* Click here and here for some background. Gov. JB Pritzker was asked about his conversations with Canada’s and Mexico’s ambassadors during an unrelated news conference…

Reporter: You said you’ve been talking with Canada and Mexico. What precisely can the state do to promote trade with the federal tariffs that are being put in place?

Pritzker: Thank you for asking the question. Let me again remind everybody that Canada is our number one trading partner. Mexico is our number two trading partner here in the state of Illinois. China is number four, but we’ll put them aside just for a moment.

I’ve done a trade mission, gone with my team to Canada to promote trade for our companies and making sure that we have good relations with their companies. Because, as I mentioned about Freedman Seating, some of the things that are inputs to the what they manufacture here come from one country and they’re selling into another of those countries.

So what can we do in the state of Illinois? Obviously, federal tariffs are decided upon at the federal government level. The President only has the right to do that if he declares an emergency, which he has. And what’s the emergency that he’s declared? Let’s talk about fentanyl, right, which is an urgent crisis. But with regard to Canada, 1 percent of all the fentanyl that ends up in the United States is coming from the northern border, from Canada. 1 percent. That’s the emergency he’s going after. Immigration is the second of the two emergencies that he has declared in order to put these tariffs on immigration. That is not a problem from Canada. I don’t know if anybody’s noticed this. The influx of Canadians is overwhelming [said with sarcasm].

What can we do? We can talk to the Canadian representatives. In my case, I spoke with the ambassador, the Canadian ambassador to the United States. I spoke with the ambassador, the Consul General from Mexico, and I have already conveyed to them that we do not want these tariffs put on and that I’d like to make sure that they know if they, 30 days, 25 days from now, if there are the tariffs are put on from the United States and there is retaliation that they don’t retaliate against products that are inputs and important to the companies in the state of Illinois.

So it’s important to convey what companies and what products we produce and have here in the state of Illinois to those countries and are asking them not to make that part of the list of things that they are going to retaliate against when the trade war begins if it does.

Reporter: Will they listen?

Pritzker: I believe so. I mean, they’ve been very receptive to my phone calls, which is great. And I started, by the way, by calling US ambassadors to Canada who have a great deal of knowledge of how do we get this done. And as you may know, two of the last three ambassadors to Canada are from Chicago. I spoke with one who’s from Philadelphia, and one from Chicago, and so we’re doing a lot of work to try to convey and making sure that everybody understands Illinois as a friend of Canada’s, and that we want to continue to do a lot of business with them, and Mexico I should add I don’t want to leave them out. But it happens that I spoke first with the Canadian ambassadors and then with the ambassador from Mexico.