Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden repeat at every opportunity that they have no closer ally than their neighbor. But everything indicates that despite the close ties that have united them since 2015, when the president was then vice-president under Barack Obama, both will leave their meeting this week with important demands that their vis-à-vis will not have known. to fill in.
President Joe Biden will have taken three years to make his first official visit to Ottawa. COVID-19 has shaken up this tradition for American presidents to make their first trip abroad to Canada. Justin Trudeau therefore had to settle for a “virtual summit” in February 2021.
The pandemic now calmed, Joe Biden can reconnect with the custom. He will even stay a little more than 24 hours in Ottawa.
Only Lyndon B. Johnson, George HW Bush and Donald Trump have shunned an official visit to Canada since the last century. Donald Trump had only moved to La Malbaie for the G7 summit in 2018, from where he left before the end of the discussions, tweeting a series of insults towards his host.
Justin Trudeau can expect a much more cordial visit this time from a president who is much less outrageous and more like-minded.
But however progressive he may be, Joe Biden remains President of the United States – one year from a presidential election, moreover – and therefore protectionist, as well as a little militarist.
Inadmissible requests
On the agenda for discussion is the modernization of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Last year, the Canadian government announced $4.9 billion in investments over six years to modernize the defense systems in the north of the continent. The American ambassador in Ottawa, David Cohen, nevertheless confided to CTV that these sums “do not mean that the subject will not, and should not, be part of the conversation”. Foreshadowing that the Americans will once again invite Canada to spend more on defense.
During his own official visit in 2016, Barack Obama rightly called on Canada to do more within NATO. Joe Biden risks this time returning to the charge as to the desire of the Americans to see Canada carry out a military operation in Haiti, in order to stabilize the country in deep political and security crisis. Justin Trudeau has been repeating for months, however, that such a mission is not the solution, which will have to be set up with the input and agreement of the Haitians. Canada could, however, announce the shipment of additional military equipment.
Justin Trudeau, for his part, would like to convince the Biden administration to include Canada and its reserve of critical minerals in the incentives planned for its Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). But Ottawa already seems resigned to come up against the refusal of its interlocutor. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced on Monday that her federal budget would include major investments to counter the IRA itself.
Another and final subject of talks: the Roxham Road and the Safe Third Country Agreement, a subject which again risks not being settled on Friday. Ottawa ensures that the discussions are progressing. Pressure from elected Republicans, who are making political mileage by denouncing the increase in irregular entries from Canada (109,500 entries in 2022), have probably moved the file. But the solution is, here too, complex in such a “politically charged” file, insists in an interview the former United States ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman.
“Word choice is important,” he notes. Not so easy, therefore, to no longer consider the United States as a “safe country”. And the American border policy remains one of “one and the same border” between the South and the North.
Big files, small progress
This complexity ripples through the entire relationship, Ambassador Heyman argues. Beyond the major agreements, it is therefore also necessary to have an “overall view”. “These small advances are at the heart of the functioning of our two countries,” he insists from Chicago. “All these small steps aim to move in the right direction, towards a path of compromise and solutions. »
The message is the same within the Canadian government, where it is emphasized that the files are progressing implicitly even if they will not all be settled at the end of a two-day meeting. A reading shared by Charles-Philippe David, president of the Observatory on the United States of UQAM, who recalls that senior officials continue their work once the cameras are no longer trained on their leaders.
Mr. David observes, however, that the menu of the talks this week is particularly extensive, which risks diluting the time devoted to them or the quality of the decisions. “The more subjects there are, the less progress is notable,” he fears.
And for good reason, the list is long, given the global context: war in Ukraine, expansionist aims of Russia and China, international trade, climate change, and perhaps even foreign interference.
This visit by Joe Biden will also be symbolic. Bruce Heyman predicts that the President and the Prime Minister will highlight the friendship that unites their two countries and their two democracies, such as a guarantee of stability in a context of geopolitical instability. “Abroad as well as within the United States itself, with the former president,” notes Mr. Heyman about Donald Trump.
A prophecy shared by Mr. David, who believes that Joe Biden will take advantage of his speech in Parliament to try to “drive the nail in the tomb of autocracies”.
Justin Trudeau will surely be happy to pose alongside his counterpart for two days and thus benefit from a relative media eclipse – he hopes – on the file of attempts at foreign interference in Canadian elections. But even if the two men are all smiles, this respite and their discussions will not necessarily be entirely more pleasant for the Prime Minister than the debates of the past few weeks in the country.