OTTAWA (REUTERS) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will seek to further mend fences when he meets Mr Donald Trump in Washington this week, a year after the United States President stormed out of a G-7 meeting calling Mr Trudeau "very dishonest and weak".

Mr Trudeau had angered Mr Trump at the time with his response to a question about the tariffs Washington slapped on Canadian steel and aluminium. "Canadians are polite and reasonable, but we will also not be pushed around," he said.

For Mr Trudeau, Thursday's (June 20) meeting with Mr Trump still has risks about four months before a Canadian national election. Mr Trump is deeply unpopular in Canada, especially among supporters of Mr Trudeau's Liberal Party, and notoriously unpredictable.

But maintaining a good rapport with the US, and keeping one of the world's largest trade partnerships on an even keel, is considered the top job for any Canadian prime minister.

Mr Trudeau may find he needs all the diplomatic tact he can muster.

"For Canadians, there is no bigger issue than the United States-Canada relationship," said Mr Frank Graves, a pollster at Ekos Research. "People are relieved and kind of happy that the problems with Trump were an abnormality and not a shift in the relationship."

Since last year's G-7 meeting hosted by Canada, it reached a deal with the US and Mexico on trade, Mr Trump has lifted the tariffs on imports of Canadian aluminium and steel, and US Vice-President Mike Pence touted Mr Trudeau's tough negotiating skills during a visit to Ottawa last month.

"It's important to show Canadians we can have a good relationship with an administration that has very little in common with us ideologically or politically," a Canadian government source said.

Mr Trudeau, 47, has been trailing in the polls, largely because of fallout from a scandal in the Liberal Party and he risks becoming the first prime minister to lose power after a single majority mandate since the 1930s in the election set for October.

He has clawed back some support recently, but any big setback in US-Canada relations at the meeting with Mr Trump, 73, could undermine his fight for re-election.

"The risk for Trudeau is that you never know what Trump will do," said Mr Darrell Bricker at Ipsos polling.

"Or Trudeau could be seen as not being hard enough on Trump. The hardest thing for Trudeau will be to walk between the raindrops and find the right balance," Mr Bricker said.

After his recent threat to impose tariffs on Mexico, Mr Trump's focus has shifted from North American trade to restarting trade talks with China, a burgeoning crisis with Iran and gearing up for his own re-election campaign.

Canada has been caught in the middle of the US-China trade dispute and Mr Trudeau will be seeking Mr Trump's support to press for the release of two Canadian citizens arrested by China and charged with espionage, officials in Ottawa said.

The two were detained after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co, the world's largest telecoms network gear maker, on a US warrant in December.

After a hard-fought negotiation, Canada, Mexico and the US signed a replacement of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) in November 2018. Forcing Mexico and Canada to scrap Nafta was one of Mr Trump's signature pledges during his 2016 election campaign, but he could now use a hand getting the new trade deal ratified.

The Democratic leader of the US House of Representatives, Ms Nancy Pelosi, is pressing for improved enforcement mechanisms for labour and environmental standards before she signs on to the US-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) agreement.

Mr Trudeau is going to meet Ms Pelosi and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell after he sees Mr Trump to lobby for a rapid USMCA ratification, two congressional aides and sources in Ottawa said.

"We will never be totally safe on trade while Trump is in power, so we need to build up momentum, given the recent improvements in bilateral ties," a second Canadian government source said of the Washington visit.