WASHINGTON: Wasn’t this supposed to be easier?
When Joe Biden became president of the United States, after four years of truculence and tariffs from Donald Trump, bureaucrats in Ottawa, and many other Canadians, breathed a sigh of relief, anticipating a smoother path ahead in 2021. We remember how Biden had dined with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa, speaking about his family connections to Canada and his belief that their friendship, their “family connection,” was vital to the US.
Well since 2021 ends with Canada threatening a trade war On one of Biden’s core policies, a cornerstone of a year of hard sledding on various cross-border fronts, that family analogy could include a stalking older brother or, at the very least, a neglectful parent. Has Biden been friendlier? Of course, in their topics for photographs. But has that made anything easier for Canada? It is difficult to see how.
Biden had barely been inducted when he canceled the planned Keystone XL pipeline, which the Trudeau government, and the province of Alberta, had deemed key to Canada’s economic health.
It was a hard blow, but not unexpected, as Biden had promised to cancel it as part of the climate change agenda that he had campaigned on. But some wondered if there could be a diplomatic payoff next: Former Foreign Minister John Baird told me that he thought there might have been a weakening of “buy Americans” positions, for example.
Instead, Biden stepped up the “buy Americans” rhetoric on government procurement. It doubled the tariffs on Canadian lumber. It was slow to reopen the U.S. land border after Canada had already welcomed the Americans. Biden has not intervened on behalf of Canada as the Michigan governor attempts to shut down a critical oil and gas pipeline. Some Canadians felt slighted for being left out of the new nuclear submarine pact that Biden signed with Australia and the United Kingdom for the defense of the Pacific (although Trudeau did not want to participate). And now, at the end of the year, Canada continues to mount a hands-on campaign against Biden’s proposed subsidy for electric vehicles being built in the US, saying it violates trade agreements and will destroy the Canadian auto industry. .
In particular, the day before Trudeau visited the White House in November, Biden went to an electric vehicle plant in Michigan to brag about how the upcoming grant would result in good jobs for unionized American workers. The next day, in the Oval Office, Biden repeatedly shrugged off Canadian journalists’ questions about it; in fact, he seemed annoyed at being bothered by what he considered a trivial matter in the bilateral relationship, even though it was Canada’s top priority for the visit and its top foreign affairs priority overall.
Trudeau has taken it easy, publicly at least, and has refused to take a pessimistic turn to events this year. “Biden has huge domestic responsibilities that he’s trying to overcome,” he recently told my colleague Susan Delacourt. “He is one of the good guys at climate change, at inclusion, at gender, at the things that we know are pillars for safe and successful societies and democracies. He’s on the right side of things, so he needs to be successful. “
Sure. Biden acknowledges the existential threats his country faces, physically, from climate change, and institutionally, from attacks by his predecessor’s undemocratic supporters. He is desperately trying to pass economic measures that he believes will reshape the country and justice reforms that are generations behind. It faces a divided electorate that, otherwise, many serene observers think is on the brink of a civil war, or already participating in the initial stages of one. Many Canadians would agree with Biden’s thinking on this matter. And many, like Trudeau, are pushing for him to succeed in meeting those challenges.
The challenge for Canada’s leadership is not to overlook it and find ways to remind Biden that he was the one who said that the Canada-US friendship “is absolutely critical to the United States, our well-being, our security, our sense of ourselves. “You need to be convinced that Canada’s success is not a distraction from America’s success, but it can be a component of it.
There have certainly been happier times in the relationship this year. The “two Michaels” returned home, in part thanks to the cooperation of the United States in securing their release. There have been meetings and productive summits not only between the leaders of our countries, but between all the ministers and central secretaries of the two governments; one of those summits produced a “roadmap for a renewed relationship between Canada and the United States.” That promises coordinated action on all kinds of bilateral and global affairs. At another summit, Canada joined a continental supply chain task force. The year saw advances and setbacks.
“This is one of the easiest relationships you can have as the American president, and one of the best,” Biden said when Trudeau sat next to him in the White House. Maybe from where he was sitting it seemed easy. From across the room, it seemed difficult for Trudeau to navigate.
“I think we all understand that in such a great and deep relationship, which is omnipresent for many of us, such as the relationship between Canada and the United States, there are always going to be challenges,” Trudeau told reporters. after that meeting. “And as we solve some, new ones will emerge.”
The important thing, he said, is that the two countries can talk about the issues. “Those conversations will continue to happen,” he said.
To all appearances, there is less overt hostility in those conversations than there was a year ago. But the Canadian government is not threatening a trade war because things have become easy. Even when faces were friendlier, many of the 2021 conversations were still very, very difficult.
Reference-www.thestar.com