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It would also look hypocritical for the prime minister to dash into the United States for a quick trip when his government officially shut the border in March to anything but essential travel, experts said.

“It’s not clear that a photo op counts as essential,” said Mr. Paris.

Polls have consistently shown the majority of Canadians want the U.S.-Canada border to remain closed for safety reasons. While new cases of the novel coronavirus surge to record levels in many parts of the United States, they have dropped across Canada to levels similar to March. To date, around 8,700 Canadians have died from the disease.

“It would be really awkward for the prime minister to go when, in all likelihood, the border is not going to open, given the escalating cases in the United States,” said Janice Stein, the founding director of the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs.

Not everyone agreed.

“It’s a rookie mistake for him not to go,” said John Higginbotham, a senior fellow at Carleton University in Ottawa who served as the second-highest-ranking Canadian diplomat in Washington for six years. “That’s the president to have in front of us. There are so many issues to be discussed. There’s so much turbulence internationally, then there’s long-term trade, and economic cooperation between our countries and the opening of the border.”

And Mr. Trump “may take this as a slight,” Mr. Higginbotham added.

Mr. Trudeau has been at the receiving end of Mr. Trump’s quick-twitch anger before.

The president was so furious with Mr. Trudeau when he said Canadians would not be pushed around at the end of the G7 summit in Canada in 2018 that he lashed out on Twitter, calling his host “very dishonest and weak” as he departed the country.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration discussed reimposing tariffs on Canadian aluminum over concerns about rising exports to the United States.