Canada’s government is to bolster its investment in border security after Donald Trump threatened to impose steep tariffs over illegal immigration and drug smuggling across the US-Canada frontier.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met Canada’s provincial leaders late on Wednesday to agree a united response to the US president-elect’s pledge this week to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all products from Mexico and Canada, which he said would remain in place “until such time as drugs, in particular fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country”.

After the meeting with Trudeau, Canada’s public safety minister Dominic LeBlanc said: “We believe that there is a circumstance where we can make additional investments to reassure Canadians that all of the measures necessary are in place and will continue to be in place”, although he declined to say how much extra money the federal government would make available.