Just weeks after the number of COVID-19 cases led to a return to normal in two-way traffic across the US-Canada border, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will travel to Washington for the first trilateral summit with the United States. United and Mexico since 2016.
For the Canadian delegation, the main focus of Thursday’s face-to-face meeting will likely be US President Joe Biden’s green energy program, which has troubled Ottawa.
While Trudeau’s Liberal Party-led coalition generally shared Biden’s commitment to tackling climate change, the Canadian economy has been hit by some measures such as Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline that would have carried billions of dollars of crude oil from western Canada to refineries in Texas Canada.
“The context facing Prime Minister Trudeau cannot be ignored, despite the initial enthusiasm at the end of 2020 when (President Donald) Trump lost,” said Jeffrey Collins, assistant professor of political science at the University. of Prince Edward Island.
“Canada-US relations are facing a number of disruptions,” he told VOA.
Collins said such “distractions” include Biden’s plans under the motto “Buy American Goods” and a “hard on China” approach that enjoys bipartisan support in Washington.
“If Trudeau is to see action on a number of trade / economic issues, he and his government need to start tackling the issues that are important to the Biden administration,” Collins told VOA.
According to Collins, the United States wants to see Canada spend more on defense, come up with a clear framework with China and firmly decide not to use the telecommunications technology of the Chinese company Huawei in its 5G network, according to a similar decision. in the United States, for security reasons. . In addition, the United States wants to know the details of how Canada wants to work with the United States in the “next era of continental defense”. [my/jm]
