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While Trump and Trudeau travelled to France this weekend to commemorate the armistice that brought the First World War to an end 100 years ago, Trudeau’s remarks in the viral video were recorded on a wet day in Ottawa in August 2017, 75 years after Canadian and Allied troops rushed Dieppe in a futile attempt to free the French port city of its German occupiers.

“Today, we honour those who fought with such grit and valour on the beaches of France,” Trudeau said on Aug. 22, 2017, folding his umbrella to leave himself exposed to the elements.

“As we sit here in the rain, thinking how uncomfortable we must be these minutes as our suits get wet and our hair gets wet and our shoes get wet, I think it’s all the more fitting we remember on that day in Dieppe, the rain wasn’t rain. It was bullets.

“Today and every day, we recommit ourselves to the pursuit of peace and justice for all,” Trudeau continued. “Today and all days, we remember.”

Photo by Benoit Tessier / Pool Photo via AFP / Getty Images

Trump initially planned to begin a tour this weekend of memorial events in and around Paris by observing a moment of silence on Saturday at Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial, where U.S. Marines and other troops won a brutal victory over Germany in June 1918. But the president decided against making the 100-kilometre trip from the French capital when rain prevented him from travelling by helicopter.

Beset by criticism from political commentators and social media users who watched the old Trudeau video that Trump had shrunk from honouring soldiers who fought and died in inordinately worse conditions, the White House elaborated on Trump’s rationale on Sunday by stating the president hadn’t wanted to inhibit road traffic in Paris by hastily arranging for a motorcade to drive him to the cemetery.