Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will visit the White House on November 18.
Washington said in a statement Wednesday that President Joe Biden will host Mr. Trudeau and their Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, for the first North American Leaders’ Summit since 2016; a tradition that was broken during Donald Trump’s presidency. It will also be Mr. Trudeau’s first visit to Washington since Joe Biden became president in January.
“The priorities for this year will be in particular the end of the fight against COVID-19, the continuation of the vaccination, the fight against climate change, the creation of new jobs for the middle class, the implementation of a revival economic benefit for everyone and migration, ”said the Prime Minister’s office in a press release.
Canada, in particular, has a lot of things it will want to talk about. At the top of that list will certainly be the Biden government’s plan for a tax credit for the purchase of an American-made electric vehicle, which is part of the ambitious “Build Back Better” economic and social spending program. From the Democratic President.
Some believe that this tax credit, which could be worth US $ 12,500 for buyers of new cars in the United States, would give an unfair advantage to the “big three of the auto” and would undermine this entire automotive sector highly integrated between the two countries.
This criticism ties in with Canada’s broader concerns about President Biden’s powerful ‘Buy American’ protectionist rhetoric, including a stricter vetting mechanism for foreign contractors and suppliers looking to capitalize on spectacular efforts to renovate state infrastructure. -United.
Milk, lumber and metals
The two countries are also bracing for a confrontation over old continental irritants, such as softwood lumber and dairy imports. The United States’ complaint regarding Canada’s rules for the importation of US-made dairy products is the first major trade dispute since the advent of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), which replaced NAFTA.
Canada is also eager to play a strategic role in supplying essential minerals and rare earth group metals to manufacture the batteries and electronic components so critical to the growing North American electric vehicle market.
The leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, also deplored Wednesday morning that the “Buy American Act” ensures that natural resources, such as lithium, are extracted in Quebec, but transformed in the United States into products. finished, which are then sold in Quebec.
“The“ Buy American Act ”is a protectionist measure which ensures, and it is very deplorable, that there is a tendency to an old antediluvian practice in Quebec politics which is to see our natural resources extracted, a little roughed up in the region, leaving most of the waste in Quebec, then exported to the United States, which provides most of the added value, which obtains most of the added value to return processed products to Quebec ”, he said at a press conference.
“The most obvious example is to potentially see Quebec lithium leaving Quebec and returning to us in the form of a battery from our own lithium that we will buy at a high price,” explained Mr. Blanchet.
News of the meeting in Washington also follows the easing last Monday of travel restrictions linked to COVID-19, which still prevented fully vaccinated Canadian visitors from crossing the Canada-U.S. Border on “no” travel. essential ”.
The White House described the meeting’s agenda as a way to reaffirm “strong ties and trilateral integration”, while “charting a new path” for COVID-19, competitiveness, climate change and migrations.
“Strengthening our partnership is critical to our ability to better rebuild, revitalize our leadership and respond to a growing array of regional and global challenges,” writes the US Presidency. “With respect for individual sovereignty and in a true spirit of partnership, we affirm our unshakeable vision that North America is the most competitive and dynamic region in the world. “