Saskatchewan’s premier urged de-escalation in the looming trade war with the United States, one day before a sweeping 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods was set to take effect.

However, later in the day Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the tariff on all Canadian goods was going to be delayed for 30 days, after multiple conversations with U.S. President Donald Trump. According to Trudeau, it was the two leaders first time speaking since Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20.

In a press conference Monday morning, Premier Scott Moe expressed dismay at seeing the decades of relatively free trade on the continent come under threat, and a willingness to placate the American President with a proposal to beef up security at the border by placing Canadian Forces troops along the 49th parallel.

“What do we need to do as we move forward,” Moe asked, saying he’s called on Canada’s intergovernmental affairs minister Dominic Leblanc to reconsider the retaliatory tariffs.

“If we find ourselves in a broad tariff war, or trade war, where everything that is flowing north and south is subject to tariffs, Canadians will lose,” he said. “We are an exporting province, and we are an exporting nation, and we should not be heading that direction.”

Moe says he’s heading to Washington this week, and he hoped to see Canada negotiate an extension on the imposition of tariffs like the one announced for Mexico earlier in the day.

“We have to implore on one individual; one individual — President Trump — that seems bent on using these tariffs in some way, shape or form, to destabilize the investment environment that we have in North America, to destabilize the energy and food security that we have been able to acquire in North America over the course of the last number of decades and maybe even the century, and the significant role that Saskatchewan plays in this,” said Moe.

“The North American integrated economy across that 49th parallel is no accident,” he said.

While he lamented the use of tariffs as a political tool, Moe seemed to agree with Trump on the issue of border security.

The premier suggested pulling the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) under the umbrella of the military so troops can be placed along the border and allowing the CBSA’s current budget to be counted toward the country’s military funding commitments.

“It’s not about obeying … But changing the mind of one individual,” said Moe.

“This is a beneficial relationship, and has proven to be, for many, many decades.”