China on UN Human Rights Council

Colin Robertson May 4, 2020 Comments Off

China on the UN Human Rights Council raises concern (interview)

By Marc Montgomery |
english@rcinet.ca
Posted: Monday, May 4, 2020 11:50

With China now being appointed to the Human Rights Council and the ‘consultative group’ there is concern by several countries that human rights abuses will not be investigated or properly condemned.

China has itself has regularly been accused of abuse and this could now further increase concerns that the Council has become as politicized and ineffective as its predecessor.

Colin Robertson is a former Canadian diplomat to China and to the U.N.

ListenCritics of China’s human rights record accuse the country of efforts to derail human rights resolutions whether directed at them or at others.

In July last year, 22 western nations signed a letter to the U.N about China’s arrests and incarceration of Uyghurs, and dissenters. This was followed by a letter from 37 nations, including N. Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia and others, many of whom have human rights abuses of their own people with accusations of the ‘politicization’ of human rights issues and supporting China’s actions.

Robertson says this latest appointment is part of a systematic programme of the Chinese government to seek influential positions and influence wherever it can. This is to push their global strategy of expanding Chinese interests globally beyond current aspirations in the South and East China sea, limit international criticism, and extend their power.

In an email to RCI he also wrote “The UN is the global parliament and it reflects national interests. We had hoped after the fall of the Soviet Union that the liberal international order would become the norm for all but it has not and it was naive to think it would. Russia and China see global affairs in traditional terms: as a concert of great powers each with their own spheres of influence with tributary and vassel nations within that sphere”.

He says it is unfortunate that the U.S has backed away as it leaves a vacuum and weakens the international concept of multilateralism and western ideals of ‘rule of law’.

With China now at the head of four of 15 specialized U.N. committees, there are concerns that China will not move towards a more westernized mindset, but that the world will be influenced more towards a Chinese mindset, which some critics have long said runs counter to western ideals. Germany’s foreign minister once said for example in February 2018 at the Munich security conference, ““China is developing a comprehensive system alternative to the Western one, which, unlike, our model, is not based on freedom, democracy and individual human rights”.

Additional information

On Allan Gotlieb

Colin Robertson April 27, 2020 Comments Off

Gotlieb revolutionized Canadian diplomacy with our primordial partner

By COLIN ROBERTSON APR. 27, 2020

Allan Gotlieb died last week at the age of 92, but his insights into the U.S. and the value of public diplomacy continue to have application and relevance today.

Allan Gotlieb, pictured at Wilfrid’s at the Château Laurier Hotel in 2006 for an interview about his book, The Washington Diaries: 1981-1989, a national bestseller. He saw government as a powerful force for the good: generating and testing ideas and then applying them to practical purpose, writes Colin Robertson. The Hill Times photograph by Jake Wright

The best of mandarins, as our ambassador to the United States, Allan Gotlieb revolutionized Canadian diplomacy with our primordial partner. His insights into the U.S. and the value of public diplomacy continue to have application and relevance.

His schooling set him up as a comer: as an undergraduate at Berkeley, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and then Harvard where he edited the Law Review. In 1957, Gotlieb joined what one of his Oxford tutors told him was the best foreign service in the world.

He developed a life-long appreciation of the importance of the rule of law in international relations, starting with his work on the Law of the Sea under the mentorship of our most accomplished lawyer-diplomats, Marcel Cadieux, who also served as our ambassador to the U.S.

International law, Gotlieb tutored me and fellow foreign service officers, is how middle and small powers level the field against the big powers. It didn’t always work—there is a trap door for the great powers—but for a country like Canada it should be the instinctual approach. It works best when we act in association with like-minded countries and Gotlieb told us never to discount our power as a convenor of nations. But if multilateralism didn’t succeed, then we should try bilateralism. He thought this especially important when dealing with the United States because while deepening integration made us more dependent, it also gave us certain advantages, if we were smart enough to use them.

While the Diaries record the detail, the Allan Gotlieb method is best described in a slim volume entitled I’ll Be With You In A Minute, Mr. Ambassador: The Education of a Canadian Diplomat in Washington. The Hill Times photograph by Jake Wright

As a young foreign service officer, Gotlieb impressed then federal justice minister Pierre Trudeau. They shared sophistication, brilliance, and supreme self-confidence. Neither suffered fools. They could be abrasive. Empathy was not a strong suit. After Trudeau became prime minister, Gotlieb was promoted into the new generation of deputy ministers, serving in the freshly-minted Department of Communications (1968) and then at Manpower and Immigration (1973).

As a favour to professor Peyton Lyon, a fellow Winnipeger and former foreign service officer, Gotlieb spoke to my class at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. I can still see his cigar—autre temps, autre moeurs—punctuating his points about our open immigration system and how attracting those with the talents we needed served Canadian interests. If geography was destiny so was demography and we could shape it through public policy. He saw government as a powerful force for the good: generating and testing ideas and then applying them to practical purpose.

For Gotlieb, policy coherence was vital. So was policy coordination. Returning in 1976 to the Department of External Affairs as its undersecretary, Gotlieb determined to give it a central role in developing Canadian policy. This meant making External Affairs a central agency, the equal of the Department of Finance, Treasury Board Secretariat and Privy Council Office. Rather than run programs—it had very little discretionary funds—External Affairs would coordinate Canada’s international policies using its brain-power and the intelligence of its missions abroad. We were encouraged to offer dissenting perspectives, often published publicly in International Perspectives. Gotlieb led by example and I still remember a trenchant piece on the Third Option that he penned with Jeremy Kinsman (whose own tribute to Gotlieb should be read).

Gotlieb set about consolidating the foreign service. Lacking authority and budget, the department could not control, but it could better coordinate activities abroad if Canada was to punch its weight internationally. First, under its orbit came the trade commissioners followed by the immigration officers. It would take another 20-plus years before development and its big budget would join what is now Global Affairs Canada.

Allan Gotlieb’s eight-year tenure as Canada’s ambassador in Washington, D.C., between 1981 and 1989 was marked by two main trademarks: an ambitious and activist public diplomacy and an activist strategic outreach to Congress. The Hill Times photograph by Jake Wright

Raising the foreign ministry to central agency status was the right one. Yet it failed to take. There was bureaucratic resistance to ceding turf and his successor as deputy minister did not share the Gotlieb vision.

More successful and more enduring was Gotlieb’s reform to how we do business in Washington. His eight-year tenure as ambassador between 1981 and 1989 was marked by two main trademarks: an ambitious and activist public diplomacy and an activist strategic outreach to Congress. Both were vital to achieving the 1989 Free Trade Agreement and then, after he left, the 1991 Acid Rain Accord. Carried forward by his successors, this blueprint continues to deliver results for Canada.

Gotlieb and his wife Sondra figured out how Washington worked. An invitation to their Rock Creek residence was a guarantee of powerful people and consequential conversations. His Washington Diaries published in 2006 describes, for example, visits by secretary of state George Shultz and his wife who would come and relax while watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies. Gotlieb also secured the prized location that our embassy enjoys on Pennsylvania Avenue and beat back the bean-counters and worry-warts who thought the Arthur Erickson-designed embassy was too grand. Cultural diplomacy was a major piece of his public diplomacy and the embassy was outfitted with both a gallery and a theatre that we used with effect.

While the Diaries record the detail, the Gotlieb method is best described in a slim volume entitled I’ll Be With You In A Minute, Mr. Ambassador: The Education of a Canadian Diplomat in Washington. It contains the Gotlieb “decalogue” for the conduct of the “new diplomacy” in Washington. It continues to be relevant, if not prescient:

The particular process by which a decision is reached in Washington is often so complex and mysterious that it defies comprehension.
The most important requirement for effective diplomacy in Washington is the ability to gain access to the participants in the decision-making process.
Given the vast numbers of players in the field of decision-making, and the great difficulty of predicting their likely behavior, the highest possible premium must be placed on political intelligence.
Since there are so many participants in decision-making, so many special-interest and pressure groups and so many shifting alliances, a diplomat cannot design any grand or overarching strategy to further his nation’s interests. Every issue involves its own micro-strategy and every micro-strategy is unique.
In Washington, a foreign power is itself just another special interest and not a very special one at that.
A foreign power, as a general rule, has no permanent friends or adversaries on Capitol Hill.
A foreign power, as a general rule, has no permanent friends or adversaries within the Administration.
No permanent solutions are within reach of the ambassador or his government, only temporary ones. Instability is the norm, alliances and coalitions are always being forged, forces and counterforces are always mounting.
Effective diplomacy means public diplomacy. The line between public diplomacy and interference in local affairs is a thin one and thus it must be practiced with considerable finesse.
The best and often the only way to gain access to all the key players is through the social route. In Washington, parties are a continuation of work by other means.

Allan Gotlieb taught me many things: about policy and personalities, about public and cultural diplomacy. I benefited from his generous introductions to those in his remarkable network. He taught me about the United States and our conversations would inevitably come back to his belief that our success internationally would always hinge on our understanding of the Great Republic. “The U.S.A.,” he would remind me, “is more than a country, it’s a civilization.” Americans were always interested in our insights about the rest of the world and this gave us leverage and the potential to influence, both in Washington and foreign capitals. Foreign countries were just as interested in our interpretation of the U.S. assuming that, because we were like them, we had special insight.

One lesson that served me especially well came when I travelled to St. John’s with him and Sondra shortly after his appointment to Washington. It was a conventional program, including a meeting with the premier that revolved around a day-long conference at Memorial University.

But after we’d met the notables, Gotlieb informed me that “conferences were like smorgasbord—you sample a bit here and there.” One could always later read the prepared remarks, most of which were inevitably badly read. The real value of conferences, he told me, is the networking “so be there for the breaks.” Diplomacy was about getting to know people and place. To get a “feel of a place,” continued Gotlieb, you had to get out and see it for yourself.

So we played hooky and toured St. John’s—the galleries, the port, Signal Hill, the cathedral and the basilica. There were impromptu meetings with the justice minister, the Fish Food and Allied Workers Union and the editor of The Telegram. The day rounded off with an evening that included John and Jane Crosbie. That was the Gotlieb way. It served Canada well.

Trump says no face masks for Canada

Colin Robertson April 8, 2020 Comments Off

‘The deeper the wound, the longer it takes to heal’: Trump’s threats undermine Canada-U.S. relationship, says former envoy

By NEIL MOSS APR. 8, 2020

‘We are dealing with an administration that is both very unpredictable, very much America first, [and] not long-term thinking in terms of its relationship with its allies,’ says former diplomat Michael Kergin.

Former U.S. ambassador Bruce Heyman, left, says there will be a necessary healing process in the Canada-U.S. relationship due to the damage done by American President Donald Trump. The Hill Times file photograph and photograph courtesy of the White House/Flickr

The Trump administration’s threat to withhold critical medical infrastructure has angered Canadians and may have deepened an already open wound in the Canada-U.S relationship, as politicos say the federal government needs to find alternate avenues to protect Canada’s most important alliance.

Following a weekend of uncertainty over whether Ontario hospitals would receive much needed respirator masks, 3M came to an agreement with the White House on April 6 to allow those masks to be shipped across the Canada-U.S. border.

Before the agreement was reached, Ontario Premier Doug Ford lashed out at U.S. President Donald Trump for his initial decision to restrict the export of the masks.

It was the second idea floated by the Trump administration to receive rebuke from Canadian officials. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland (University-Rosedale, Ont.) said last month that the reported U.S. proposal to send troops to the Canada-U.S. border was “an entirely unnecessary step” and Canada would view such a move as “damaging to our relationship.” In the end, the U.S. backed down on the idea.

Obama-era U.S. ambassador Bruce Heyman, who was posted to Ottawa from 2014 to 2017, compared damage to the Canada-U.S. relationship to a wound.

“The deeper the wound, the longer it takes to heal,” he told The Hill Times prior to the announcement that the 3M masks would be allowed to be exported.

“[Mr. Trump] is working his way to making deeper wounds with our allies,” including with Canada, he said. “There will be repair that is necessary.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on April 7 that the Canadian government continues to emphasize to the Trump administration the interconnectivity of Canada-U.S. health-care services and supply chains. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

“You earn trust over time, you can lose trust very fast. … It takes a significant amount of time to gain it back once lost. So trust is the basis of the relationship and that’s been under threat with this president.”

Asked if the agreement between 3M and the White House was a full or one-time exemption to export restrictions, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) said on April 7 that his government continues to work with the Americans.

“We’re going to continue to highlight to the American administration the point at which health-care supplies and services go back and forth across that border,” Mr. Trudeau told reporters.

Liberal MP Wayne Easter (Malpeque, P.E.I.) told The Hill Times that there has been an underlying feeling among Canadians of “anger and frustration” towards the U.S. government.

Mr. Easter, who is co-chair of the Canada-U.S. Inter-Parliamentary Group (IPG), said the pandemic proves the importance of building relationships in Washington beyond the White House, as well as at the state level.

“On the Canada-U.S. IPG, we just all work strenuously to ensure that things don’t deteriorate and get out of hand as a result of some of the decisions that come out of the White House from time to time,” said Mr. Easter, who on April 3 spoke with Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, chair of the influential Senate Finance Committee and the second-highest ranking Senator as the president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate.

While that conversation was meant to be about discussing the economic conditions brought on by the pandemic, Mr. Easter said the two talked about ensuring their respective governments don’t make decisions that are detrimental to the other through “a knee-jerk reaction rather than something well thought out.”

Former diplomat Colin Robertson, who sat on the international trade deputy minister’s NAFTA advisory council, said Canada has learned lessons on how to deal with the Trump administration: namely, to work around it.

He said during previous times of friction between the Trudeau and Trump governments during the NAFTA renegotiations, Canada put emphasis on outreach to governors and legislators at the federal and state levels, as well as business and labour interests, adding that Ms. Freeland was one of the architects of that strategy.

“She knows who to call. The Rolodex is there and we can pick up the phone. These are always what you want to have in an emergency. You don’t want to be meeting people or talking to people for the first time. And I think we have really embedded ourselves much more deeply into the United States as a result of the renegotiations of the economic agreement,” he said.

Conservative MP Colin Carrie (Oshawa, Ont.), his party’s critic on Canada-U.S. relations and a member of the Canada-U.S. IPG’s executive, said the pandemic is certain to put pressure on the bilateral relationship.

“Canada and the United States have been best friends, neighbours, and allies for the majority of our existence. The stress of fighting this pandemic would strain even the best relationships as governments scramble to save the lives of their most vulnerable,” he said, adding that he doesn’t think efforts to curb the virus would lead to long-term damage in the relationship, but instead to stronger ties as the two countries seek “common solutions.”

Mr. Carrie noted that the past uncertainty over the 3M shipment should serve as a sign that Canada needs a certain level of domestic production for its own vital equipment, adding that Canada should be negotiating with the U.S. for a reciprocal agreement for critical medical items.

Liberal MP Wayne Easter, right, is pictured speaking with U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley in 2017. Photograph courtesy of Twitter

Former diplomat Michael Kergin, who served as Canada’s ambassador to the United States from 2000 to 2005, said the threats are more of the same that have been levied at Canada since Mr. Trump’s inauguration in 2017.

“We recognize that we are dealing with an administration that is both very unpredictable, very much America first, [and] not long-term thinking in terms of its relationship with its allies,” he said.

The list includes the threat to suspend NAFTA, which prompted renegotiations of the pact, as well as personal attacks lobbed at Mr. Trudeau. Angered by Mr. Trudeau’s statements at a 2018 press conference following the G7 summit in Charlevoix, Que., Mr. Trump called the Canadian prime minister: “meek and mild” and “very dishonest and weak.” Mr. Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, later took to U.S. cable news to say there was a “special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad-faith diplomacy with Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out of the door.”

Whether Mr. Trump’s rhetoric will have a long-term impact on the Canada-U.S. relationship remains to be seen.

“I think if Trump is re-elected, there is a chance that things could become a little more scratchy and problematic,” said Mr. Kergin, adding that Mr. Trump has been replacing the people in Washington that understand the importance of the Canada-U.S. relationship and the long-term interest that the U.S. has in managing it.

But Mr. Kergin said the strong safety net in the relationship is still present at the local and state levels, as well as with business and academic interests.

Carleton University international affairs professor Fen Osler Hampson said Mr. Trump’s protectionist ideas shouldn’t have come as a big surprise for Canada.

“I think it’s fair to say that we always have to look out for our own interests. The Americans aren’t going to be looking out for them,” said Prof. Hampson, who authored the soon-to-be-released book, Braver Canada, with Derek Burney, a former Canadian ambassador to the U.S., which calls for further economic diversification away from the United States.

“It’s the new abnormal,” he said. “You’ve got to be constantly on guard for surprises, uncertainty, drastic shocks, and that means being nimble, being adept, being smart.”

Former U.S. ambassador to Canada Gordon Giffin, who was appointed to the role by U.S. President Bill Clinton and served in the post from 1997 to 2001, said the things that are being done in current circumstances are not representative of the relationship as a whole.

“I think the relationship is reasonably solid,” he said, noting though that the U.S. is still without an ambassador in Ottawa who could help prevent some issues in the relationship from coming to the surface.

“When we get our new ambassador there, that’ll help.”

Aldona Wos has been named the U.S.’s next ambassador to Canada, but she has yet to be confirmed to the post by the U.S. Senate. Previous ambassador Kelly Craft left the role last fall to become the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Canada a casualty of U.S.’s underprepared pandemic response, says former ambassador

“[At one point] I was with President Obama in the White House,” recalled Mr. Heyman, “and he said, ‘Do you know what keeps me up at night?’ He said: ‘a global pandemic.’”

“That’s not what I expected, but I will never forget that conversation. I especially won’t forget it now,” the former diplomat said.

Mr. Heyman said the current U.S. president “lost precious time” to curb the virus with an international partnership when he didn’t take the threat of the virus as seriously as he should have when his intelligence advisers first alerted him to the threat.

Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that U.S. officials had warned senior Trump administration officials in January that the pandemic could put millions of Americans at risk.

“Had [Mr. Trump] done the work in advance then we would have had plenty of masks to go around for all the people who needed it, on both sides of our border,” Mr. Heyman said.

Along with the lack of preparedness, Mr. Robertson said, Canada has also been a casualty of Mr. Trump’s America First policies, adding that he didn’t think any previous U.S. president would threaten to withhold the masks from Canada.

“It doesn’t matter what administration—Carter, Ford, Nixon, Clinton, Regan—they all saw the value of alliances and the importance of keeping the allies a part of the alliance,” he said. “Trump just doesn’t recognize that.”

Canada and UN Security Council seat

Colin Robertson March 29, 2020 Comments Off

Canada keeps up push for UN Security Council seat during COVID-19 crisis

Mike Blanchfield / The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — The COVID-19 pandemic ended the secret handshakes and deal-making in the world’s power corridors, but Canada’s campaign for a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council is full steam ahead.

Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne and International Development Minister Karina Gould confirmed the continuing campaigning in separate interviews with The Canadian Press this past week.

They say Canada’s voice on the world’s most powerful decision-making body is needed more than ever because of the big decisions that lie ahead in managing the pandemic and its aftermath.

Canada faces tough competition from Norway and Ireland for the two available seats for a temporary two-year term that would start next year.

Both countries are viewed widely as having an advantage because they spend far more than Canada on international development to poor countries and have far more military personnel deployed on UN peacekeeping missions — two key issues for UN member countries.

Champagne and Gould say that Canada’s international stature has grown because of its response to the COVID-19 outbreak, which so far includes a $50-million foreign aid package, but some ex-diplomats say Canada needs to spend more in that area to win votes.

“The UN Security Council is the body that determines how the world reacts to issues of global security and instability,” said Gould, adding that it has never been more important to have a “rational voice” on the 10 rotating, non-permanent members of the council.

“It just demonstrates why it is important for Canada to sit on the UN Security Council. That campaign carries on, but in a different way.”

After taking part in a teleconference with fellow G7 foreign ministers this past week, Champagne said Canada’s membership in that exclusive club of leading nations would help it in the ongoing UN campaign.

“Canada has been chairing or organizing a number of calls with G7 countries,” he said. He said Canada has “a voice that is much needed in the world where we need to co-operate, co-ordinate and work together. I think Canada brings something unique to the table.

“I think more and more countries want to see their voice amplified through Canada.”

That includes during the pandemic itself, he said, “but also once we will be in the post-COVID world (we) will need countries like Canada to be there.”

Canada’s international credibility has also risen in recent months because of the role it has taken in leading the quest to get answers from Iran about its January downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane, as well its recent completion of a new North American trade deal, said Colin Robertson, a seasoned ex-diplomat.

“The new responsibilities of middle-power status, especially G7 and G20 membership, differentiates us from Norway and Ireland,” said Robertson, vice-president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

Canada’s shortfalls in peacekeeping and foreign aid remain a crippling factor in the UN bid, but the COVID-19 crisis gives it an opportunity to make up for it that, said Stephen Lewis, Canada’s UN ambassador in the 1980s.

Canada received negative reviews for its “brief peacekeeping mission in Mali” and for pulling out earlier than the UN wanted, said Lewis, who remains active in UN circles as one of the leaders of an international organization trying to stamp out abuse by peacekeepers.

“Although Canada may consider that trivial, it registers deeply with the international peacekeeping community around the world, countries whose vote Canada would want,” said Lewis.

That can be rectified by giving cash — “several hundred million” — to the African Union for its peacekeeping operations and increasing its foreign aid contribution to COVID-19 well beyond the current $50 million, which Lewis calls, “woefully inadequate.” He said Canada’s fair share would be $140 million at minimum.

“The government espouses generosity: in fact, they’re begrudging pretenders,” said Lewis.

Spending matters more than ever, especially during the pandemic, and especially in Africa where 54 of the UN General Assembly’s 190-plus countries hold a crucial bloc of votes in the Security Council election, said Bessma Momani, an international affairs expert at the University of Waterloo.

So far, Canada’s $50-million pledge looks modest, and individual African countries will want more, she said.

“If I were an African government expecting COVID-19 to knock on my door any minute now, maybe if you’re choosing between Norway and Ireland, I would use that as leverage … If you want me to vote, where’s my help?” said Momani.

Canada should campaign to address a more pressing need at the Security Council — the fact that it has been missing in action in combatting the pandemic, according to the Canadian-led World Refugee Council. Its leading members include former UN ambassadors Allan Rock and Paul Heinbecker, and Lloyd Axworthy, Canada’s foreign minister when the country last served on the council two decades ago.

“The Security Council’s silence is a troubling symptom of the deep dysfunction that has beset its 15-member body in recent years,” the group said in a statement.

“As Canada campaigns for one of those seats in this year’s election, it should pledge in its platform to bring the Security Council back to life and face up to its responsibilities.”

The pandemic raises questions about whether the General Assembly, whose members are to hold a vote in June, will be able to meet to hold an election.

The Security Council has been meeting recently via video conference so it is conceivable that the General Assembly could convene that way in June, said Adam Chapnick, a Royal Military College professor and author of a new book on the Security Council.

“That said, there is a real chance that this pandemic will be significantly worse (at least in the global south, where it is only beginning) in a few months, so I suspect that we will be in unprecedented territory by the time the meetings are supposed to be held,” Chapnick said.

“Still, I can’t imagine that an election won’t be held, because the seats do have to be filled.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 29, 2020.

Assessing G20

Colin Robertson March 27, 2020 Comments Off

G20 to do ‘whatever it takes’ to combat coronavirus, says Trudeau

By Levon Sevunts |
english@rcinet.ca
Posted: Thursday, March 26, 2020 15:28

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The Group of 20 major economies have agreed to do “whatever it takes” to overcome the coronavirus crisis, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday.

Trudeau took part in the extraordinary summit called by Saudi King Salman by video link.

Saudi Arabia, the current G20 chair, called the summit amid earlier criticism of the group’s slow response to the disease that has infected more than 511,000 people worldwide, killed more than 23,000, and is expected to trigger a global recession.

Flattening the global curve

Speaking at his regular press briefing from the porch of his home at Rideau Cottage in Ottawa, Trudeau said the 90-minute conference of world leaders covered a wide range of subjects.

“We talked about the need for a coordinated global response, that is something that the G20 is particularly well-suited to move forward on and we need to make sure that we’re continuing to exchange information and align in the actions we take,” Trudeau said.

The G20 leaders also talked about the need to flatten the global curve, Trudeau added.

“Which means beyond just individual countries doing what’s necessary for themselves, we need to work together to have an impact that goes beyond our borders,” Trudeau said.

A $5 trillion global financial injection

The leaders also talked about the need for global economic support, Trudeau said.

The communique released by the leaders announced that the G20 countries are injecting $5 trillion into the global economy through national measures as part of their efforts to lessen the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The G20 represents 85 per cent of the global GDP, Trudeau said.

“We know that we have the capacity to stave off [recession] and to positively impact the economy at this time of significant stress and so we pledged to work together,” Trudeau said.

Help for vulnerable countries

The G20 countries also pledged to help vulnerable countries that don’t have either the science or the health systems to be able to keep their populations safe, including through investments through world global organizations such as the UN, the World Health Organization and the World Bank, Trudeau said.

“We also specifically talked about the challenges facing Africa and how we will be there to support Africa as they face this pandemic as well,” Trudeau said.

Canada will be participating in international efforts to fight COVID-19, Trudeau reiterated.

“We know that support for vulnerable countries who are struggling with the ability to combat this virus is not just about being altruistic, it’s about protecting Canadians as well,” Trudeau said.

“This virus will possibly face resurgences, even once we handle that in Canada and in many countries. Our ability to minimize those resurgences will be linked to help and work with the countries in more dire situations.”

Support for global public health initiatives

World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was to address the G20 to seek support for ramping up funding and production of personal protection equipment for health workers amid a global shortage.

“We have a global responsibility as humanity and especially those countries like the G20,” Tedros told a news conference in Geneva on Wednesday. “They should be able to support countries all over the world.”

The WHO and national and local public health agencies must be given the resources they need to fight the pandemic, Trudeau said.

“It means working together to develop a vaccine, identify treatments and increase testing,” Trudeau said. “We’re also expanding manufacturing capacity for critical medical and equipment and working to keep the supply chains moving to get that equipment to the people who need it.”

Trudeau defended the federal government’s decision to ship 16 tons of medical equipment and supplies to China in February as it was struggling to contain the epidemic that originated in the central city of Wuhan and then spread to the rest of the world.

“We recognized from the very beginning that this is a global crisis that requires global cooperation and response if we are to keep all of us safe and if we are to keep Canadians safe,” Trudeau said.

“At the same time I can assure everyone that federal stockpiles had been sufficient to meet the needs of the provinces until this point and in the coming days we will be receiving millions more items that are necessary right across the country, at the same time as our business, companies and manufacturers are tooling up production to make sure that we have enough, not just for Canadians for friends and allies around the world, who need them.”

A summit amid global frictions

Despite calls for cooperation, the G20 risks entanglement in an oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia and frictions between the United States and China over the origin of the coronavirus outbreak.

Former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson said it was important that despite their differences the G20 leaders were able to put out a joint communique even if it didn’t give an immediate sense of action by the leaders themselves.

“If you read it, you’ll see that they have essentially delegated to ministers of health, ministers of finance, foreign ministers and other ministers to report back to them and endorsed the work of the World Health Organization and the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank,” said Robertson, who is vice president and Fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute think tank.

“I would give them a B+ for effort but I would give them a C- for actual action.”

With files from Reuters

G29 Primer

Colin Robertson March 26, 2020 Comments Off

The G20 Emergency Meeting: Addressing the COVID-19 Crisis – March 26, 2020

PRIMER

by Colin Robertson
CGAI Vice-President and Fellow
March 2020

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Introduction

With Saudi Arabia’s King Salman in the chair, leaders from the G20 will meet virtually on Thursday, March 26 to consider how to respond to the financial and health crisis caused by the coronavirus. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres says “global solidarity is not only a moral imperative it is in everyone’s interest”. Yet it is an open question as to whether or not the G20 will be up to the enormous task ahead.

In recent years the G20, representing about 80 per cent of global economic output and two-thirds of the world’s population, has effectively acted as the world’s management board. In times of crisis it is supposed to be the fire brigade. It was financial crises – the Asian and dot.com crashes at the turn of the century – that gave the G20 its birth. Canada’s Paul Martin was the architect, bringing together finance ministers and central bankers. The 2008 crisis raised it to the leaders’ level and in a series of meetings they directed the recovery.

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A Difficult Backdrop

The two superpowers or G2 – the U.S. and China – are in the midst of a trade war that is now geo-political as they trade insults over responsibility for the pandemic. It originated, as do most influenzas, in southern China. There is no evidence to suggest it came from the U.S. army as some Chinese and Iranians have claimed. President Donald Trump muses about a return to normalcy by Easter despite the advice of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Chinese officials initially suppressed information about the outbreak, but now China is positioning itself as a global benefactor sending doctors and medical supplies to Italy, Iran, Iraq, the Philippines and Serbia.

Russia, which sees itself as G3, and the Saudis, who chair the G20, are engaged in a pricing battle over the price of oil. A European Union report says Russian agents are mounting a “significant disinformation campaign” to subvert Western and EU countries’ communications around the pandemic.

The Europeans – Germany, UK, France, Italy and their EU leadership – are beset by BREXIT and another migration crisis compounded by the coronavirus pandemic that is especially afflicting Italy. Meanwhile the trouble spots – Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Palestine, Syria, Venezuela – as well as climate change remain on the agenda, even if COVID-19 has eclipsed them for now.

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The Money Problem

The IMF and the World Bank both forecast the pandemic would trigger a global recession in 2020. Many currencies are already plunging, and there is a risk of an emerging markets crisis. Argentina, whose debt has been deemed unsustainable by the IMF, warned fellow G20 member they must act decisively to “avoid a social meltdown”. World Bank president David Malpass is calling on the G20 to provide debt relief for the poorest 75 countries with the Bank providing a multi-billion package for support and procurement.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva calls it, “a recession at least as bad as during the global financial crisis or worse”. As of March 23, investors have already removed $83 billion from emerging markets since the beginning of the crisis. It’s the largest capital outflow ever-recorded. According to Ms. Georgieva, who expects recovery in 2021, advanced economies are generally in a better position to respond to the crisis, but many emerging markets and low-income countries face significant challenges especially those in debt distress. Some 80 countries have already applied to the IMF for emergency financial relief. She promised to “massively step up emergency finance” and to deploy their US$1 trillion lending capacity for them.

G20 Finance ministers met on Monday and “agreed to closely monitor the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic, including its impact on markets and economic conditions and take further actions to support the economy during and after this phase.”

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The Health Crisis

Most western nations are now in lock-down to try to ‘flatten the curve’ of the coronavirus plague. World Health Organization Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reported on Monday that over 300,000 cases (and now more than 400,000) of COVID-19 have been reported to WHO, from almost every country in the world. He noted that it took 67 days from the first reported case to reach the first 100,000 cases, 11 days for the second 100,000 cases and just 4 days for the third 100,000 cases. As he put it “that’s heartbreaking.” We need, he said “unity in the G20 countries”. He also warned that “small, observational and non-randomized studies will not give us the answers we need. Using untested medicines without the right evidence could raise false hope, and even do more harm than good and cause a shortage of essential medicines that are needed to treat other diseases.”

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What should come out of the meeting?

It would be grand if the leaders agreed to a coordinated approach including sharing test treatment results and vaccines; rolling back tariffs on healthcare equipment; and synchronized fiscal action. The International Monetary Fund has both a trust fund for catastrophic containment and relief, as well as a pandemic-financing facility, and both will need replenishing, as well as new thinking on how to keep countries liquid.

There are lots of good ideas.

On the economic front and drawing on the lessons from the 2008-9 experience, nations are opening the taps with fiscal stimulus and monetary easing to preserve liquidity including direct cash disbursements to households. Public trust matters, as the 2008 financial crisis taught us: People must come first. Public money to business should be about bridging loans and equity, rather than bailouts.

The International Chamber of Commerce, the World Health Organization and Business Twenty (B20) call for ensuring infection control and medical products reach the hands of those who need them the most; using the private sector to help meet the need for testing and related reporting; ensuring equitable access and affordability of essential medical supplies and health services; and scaling financial assistance.

On the health side, in a joint statement on pandemic preparedness, the Business 20, Civil 20, Labor 20, Think 20, Women 20 and Youth 20 call on leaders to strengthen global outbreak response capacity and health systems and to facilitate research and development.

Practical measures could include making a global standard of the Global Health Security Index. It’s the first comprehensive assessment and benchmarking of health security and related capabilities across the 195 countries that make up the States Parties to the International Health Regulations (IHR [2005]). The Index was developed by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (JHU) and The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

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What do we expect from the meeting?

Beyond a promise to keep in close collaboration and to meet again, the danger is that G20 leaders resort to bromides and weasel words. G7 Foreign Ministers met virtually on March 25 and but there was no communiqué. The readout from Canadian Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne said that the meeting focussed on the COVID-19 response and that they also discussed the plight of the Rohingya, Afghanistan, China, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Russia, the Sahel, and Syria. Der Spiegel reported that the meeting could not come to an agreement on the language to be used to describe the pandemic. with the U.S. wanting to call it the “Wuhan virus” and the others saying COVID-19.

For now, it’s ‘Sauve qui peut’ – every nation for itself as borders shut and quarantines are imposed. In looking at the response of G7 and G20 leaders, NYT Mark Landler observed “their voices are less a choir than a cacophony, with the United States absent from its traditional conductor role.”

Closing borders appeals to the populists, who celebrate the nation state and oppose immigration and globalization. At worst the supply and demand shock could result in a shift back to national self-sufficiency and the unraveling of globalization. “After 9/11 and the 2008 global financial crisis, this is the third big test of our decency and ability to cooperate, because the virus does not respect borders,’’ said Brookings fellow Constanze Stelzenmüller. “We need to cooperate across the board, in health management and fiscal stimulus.”

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And if the G20 can’t or won’t act?

We will need a new group of nations to take on the mantle. The leaders of the G20′s multilateral democracies – Japan’s Shinzo Abe, Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Emmanuel Macron, South Korea’s Moon Jae-in, Canada’s Justin Trudeau, European Council President Charles Michel and president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen – could form the core of this new group that should include the like-minded nations such as Norway, Ireland, Singapore and New Zealand. Taiwan can offer lessons in reining in the coronavirus and SARS epidemics, even though Taiwan has been denied even observer status in the WHO because of China’s ridiculous demands. The global public needs to see that multilateralism works and that liberal democracies can act decisively while respecting liberty.

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Looking Forward

There are no winners in this situation but there are lots of losers. Then there are the 70.8 million displaced persons – twice the population of Canada – living in crowded camps ripe for pandemic, who now find doors shut from even the traditional recipient nations including Canada. According to the UN Migration Agency, as of March 23 at least 174 nations have issued COVID-19 related travel restrictions,. The International Organization for Migration is tracking the day-by-day shutdown of global mobility pathways.

What is also clear is that this crisis is exposing the failings and costs of an inadequate global healthcare system. According to the World Health Organization, global spending on healthcare was US$ 7.8 trillion in 2017, or about 10% of GDP and $1,080 per capita. A WHO/UNICEF costing study concluded that with an additional US$1 billion per year, immunization could save 10 million more lives in a decade.

The world will continue to face outbreaks as a result of climate change and urbanization, international mass displacement and migration or accidental or deliberate release of a deadly engineered pathogen. Countries are ill positioned to combat them unless we act together.

There is lots to draw from including the 2016 United Kingdom’s global Review on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) that offered a blueprint of recommendations including investments to accelerate the development not just of a vaccine but also of therapeutic treatments and better diagnostics. In the absence of action AMR warned that by 2050 antibiotic-resistant microbes could take up to ten million lives per year, at a total cost of around $100 trillion in lost output between 2015 and 2050. AMR’s chair Jim O’Neill , who now chairs Chatham House, says that the G20 will have “no excuse” if it fails to muster at least $10 billion for the immediate provision of COVID-19 diagnostics and treatments, and another $10 billion to kick-start the market for new antibiotics.

A final thought: total world military expenditure rose to $1.822 trillion in 2018, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). As it’s increasingly likely to be microbes rather than missiles that get us, then more investment into healthcare, and especially into preparing for pandemics, seems prudent.

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Resources

Previous primers go into more detail about the G20. For more on the Saudi plan for their presidency see their strategy document.

On the Coronavirus look at this educational scrolling infographic by SCMP and animated video by Kurzgesagt that explains how the virus works. Oxford University regularly updates its Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) across countries and time. Check out this real-time map from Johns Hopkins. See also the Financial Times real-time COVID-19 dashboard. The Visual Capitalist (a Canadian initiative) has some excellent pictorials on the Global Health Index, pandemics and ‘Black Swan’ events.

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Canada, China and G20

Colin Robertson March 25, 2020 Comments Off

China can play key role in G20 virtual summit on COVID-19 crisis: former Canadian officials

: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mailXinhua, March 26, 2020

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by Christopher Guly

OTTAWA, March 25 (Xinhua) — An emergency meeting of G20 leaders is set to address the human and economic toll taken by the COVID-19 pandemic, and China can play a key role in the discussions at the virtual gathering, according to two former Canadian officials.

“It doesn’t have to agree with everything on both the economic and security sides. But on health, everyone should be in the same league, and China has had the experience,” said Colin Robertson, who served as a Canadian consul in Hong Kong from 1987 to 1992.

He expressed the belief that China could play an important role in promoting the development of the vaccine and treatment for COVID-19 by sharing its experience on a digital platform that could be accessed by researchers around the world.

“China has the best petri dish, and could produce ventilators and masks for the public good,” explained Robertson, vice-president and fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

He said the Group of 20, a global body created in 1999, should focus on healthcare and keeping supply chains for food, water and fuel moving, in collaboration with the World Health Organization.

“The G20 represents two-thirds of the world’s population and represents about 80 percent of global economic output — and these are the countries who should be leading the global effort,” said Robertson.

Perrin Beatty, a former Canadian cabinet minister who now serves as president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, welcomed the special G20 meeting on COVID-19.

“This is an international issue,” he said in an interview. “This is a war where everyone in the world has a common enemy that’s invisible and deadly, and to be successful, we’re going to require international collaboration.”

Beatty said there is a lot to learn from China, which is ramping up its industrial capabilities as the country returns to work.

“We need supplies — and there are lessons from what they did and what they did wrong,” he said, referring to China’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Trump and the Border

Colin Robertson March 23, 2020 Comments Off

As Trump muses about easing COVID-19 restrictions, all eyes are on the border

Any moves President Trump makes to lift restrictions likely to be blocked by state governments, diplomats say

Katie Simpson · CBC News · Posted: Mar 23, 2020 5:44 PM ET | Last Updated: March 23

comments

Canada may face additional pressure to re-examine its pandemic response border agreement with the United States if U.S. President Donald Trump follows through on speculation that he might ease social distancing recommendations in the next week.

However, Ottawa likely will be able to avoid making difficult decisions about additional restrictions thanks to the work of governors who are enforcing robust measures in their individual states, two former diplomats say.

Dramatically different messages emerged from Ottawa and Washington on Monday, as the leaders of both countries attempt to navigate the COVID-19 crisis.

The ‘measure of last resort’: What is the Emergencies Act and what does it do?

Go home and stay home, Trudeau tells Canadians as government warns of COVID-19 enforcement measures

In his most blunt public comments to date, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Canadians today at his daily pandemic briefing that they must take to heart directives from public health officials to stay home and avoid gatherings.

“Enough is enough. Go home, and stay home,” Trudeau said. “This is what we all need to be doing.”

Trudeau: ‘Enough is enough. Go home and stay home.’

3 days ago
1:00

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says nothing that could help is ‘off the table,’ when it comes to enforcing self-isolation rules. 1:00

President Donald Trump seems to be leaning toward a different approach. He recently made the case for easing the social distancing guidelines his administration issued, which are to expire next week.

In a late Sunday night all-caps tweet, Trump wrote:

“WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!”

“The president is right,” Larry Kudlow, the White House economic adviser, told Fox News. “We can’t shut in the economy. The economic cost to individuals is just too great.”

Trump v. the experts

Trump is reportedly furious about the state of the economy — and is directing his anger at the public health officials who have made decisions that have hurt markets and killed jobs, ultimately making his re-election bid far more difficult.

His public musings about allowing social distancing restrictions to expire directly contradict warnings issued by members of his inner circle.

“I want America to understand this week it’s going to get bad, and we really need to come together as a nation,” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams told NBC’s Today, hours after the president’s initial tweet.

“Everyone needs to be taking the right steps right now, and that means stay at home.”

If Trump gives Americans the all-clear to return to normal life at a time when public health officials are warning the pandemic is about to get worse, it may make some Canadians question whether allowing any travel between Canada and the U.S. is safe.

It’s almost like you have 50 states operating with 50 different sets of rules.– Ex-diplomat Bruce Heyman

On Friday, Trudeau and Trump separately announced that non-essential travel between the two countries would be temporarily banned for 30 days. Trade and commerce continues as usual.

Former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson said he thinks that border policy will still work, regardless of what the White House does — and it’s because of actions taken by individual governors.

“If Donald Trump says, ‘Eat, drink and be merry’ … he’s going to run into problems from states who will then exercise their authority,” he told CBC News.

“They are much more realistic about the problem — Democrats and Republicans alike.”

‘Please, God, stay home’

Governors in 13 different states have issued stay-at-home orders which collectively apply now to more than 100 million Americans.

“Please, God, stay home,” said New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday.

Those not following social distancing regulations are “reckless,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“It’s violative of your civic spirit and duty as a citizens as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

“It’s actually fallen to our governors to take a leadership role,” said Bruce Heyman, a former U.S. ambassador to Canada under Barack Obama.

“It’s almost like you have 50 states operating with 50 different sets of rules because we don’t have the overall guidance coming out from the White House.”

More than a million Canadian citizens and permanent residents returned home last week

Canada’s cyber spies taking down sites as battle against COVID-19 fraud begins

Toronto’s mayor declares state of emergency amid COVID-19 pandemic

Heyman said he thinks Trudeau may need to re-examine the border agreement if problems develop.

“It would surprise me that that would be needed, but the prime minister will have to respond to whatever he is confronted with,” he said.

A source with direct knowledge of the situation says the Canadian government is leaving nothing off the table in its pandemic policy. That line is consistent with what the prime minister has said publicly.

G20 Emergency Summit

Colin Robertson March 22, 2020 Comments Off

COLIN ROBERTSON

SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

PUBLISHED MARCH 22, 2020

3 COMMENTS

Colin Robertson is a former Canadian diplomat and current vice-president and fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

The coronavirus is putting multilateralism and its values through the ringer.

Typically, this would spark its defenders, chief among them the Group of 20 (G20) nations, an initiative born in 1999 from economic trouble after debt crises in places such as Mexico, Thailand, Brazil and Russia, and then given powerful purpose after another wave of economic trouble in the form of the 2008 financial crisis. Since then, the G20 – representing about 80 per cent of global economic output and two-thirds of the world’s population – has effectively acted as the world’s management board, with its annual summits and communiques capping a year-long process of global governance.

The G20 is needed now more than ever – to muster collective action and secure supply chains for food, fuel, water, and direct health-care capacity (in collaboration with the World Health Organization) – and it is preparing to hold an extraordinary virtual summit meeting next week. Yet it is an open question as to whether or not it will be up to the enormous task ahead.

There are three areas that present the most immediate challenges. The first is health care. The world’s pandemic-preparedness systems have been revealed to be inadequate. We need a global approach to assessing needs and to producing masks and ventilators. And as highlighted by the fact that WHO inspectors were initially denied entry and information in China when the coronavirus first emerged, health monitors should be granted the same remit as election observers or nuclear inspectors, who travel and report without government interference.

The second is money. The International Monetary Fund has both a trust for catastrophic containment and relief, as well as a pandemic-financing facility, and both will need replenishing, as well as as new thinking on how to keep countries liquid. Public trust matters, as the 2008 financial crisis taught us: People must come first. Public money to business should be about bridging loans and equity, rather than bailouts. Governments that practice antagonistic “beggar thy neighbour” approaches in their economic recoveries should be sanctioned.

The third is transparency. A free media is critical for public trust. Misinformation breeds panic and incites racism. We need a code of conduct with watchdogs for traditional and social media.

The diversity of the G20 – north-south, east-west, authoritarians and democrats – reflects geopolitical realities, but it is also a weakness. Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman currently holds the G20’s rotating chair, but he is fixated with dynastic succession, the price of oil and regional intrigue. Meanwhile, a European Union report says Russian agents are mounting a “significant disinformation campaign” to subvert Western and EU countries’ communications around the pandemic.

Having stemmed the virus using invasive surveillance and coercive quarantine, Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party are now providing masks to Italy, and they have promised to reciprocate for EU assistance come springtime. But they are booting out U.S. journalists, forbidding them to work out of China, Hong Kong and Macau because of their so-called biased reporting on the Xinjiang internment camps, corruption within China’s senior cadres, the Hong Kong protest movement and the initial cover-up around the coronavirus.

In 2008, G20 leadership came from U.S. presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. But this time, Donald Trump has resorted to an “America First” policy, expressed in reports that he sought exclusive rights to a potential vaccine made in Germany.

Global governance is especially vital for displaced peoples who have been crowded into camps without hope of relief as borders close. Former Ontario premier Bob Rae’s work on behalf of the Rohingya helped galvanize a multilateral response, and Mr. Rae’s new assignment as special envoy on humanitarian and refugee issues is the kind of initiative the world needs from the multilateralists.

The global public needs to see that multilateralism works and that liberal democracies can act decisively while respecting liberty. Humanity will thank them for it.

CUSMA

Colin Robertson March 16, 2020 Comments Off

On Friday, the House of Commons passed legislation to ratify the United States-Mexico Canada Agreement after which the Senate signed off on the bill. Speaking to Farmscape, Colin Robertson, the Vice President and a fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, says ratification of the agreement by all three signatories brings much needed stability back to the North American trading platform.

“The uncertainty had basically frozen up investment by Canadians in Canada and certainly by foreign investment in Canada, as the Governor of the Bank of Canada had remarked,” says Robertson.

“A similar situation applied in Mexico as well so I think that it brings stability back to North America.

“The North American platform has everything going for it. We’ve got a young population, we’ve got a highly educated population, we’ve got a massive market of 500 million people with the United States, Mexico and Canada, we’ve got energy a plenty and we’ve been working together.

“The supply chain that we’ve established since the NAFTA came into effect in 1994 are working well and working better but what this agreement does is give the assurance to foreign investors and investors within North America that you can continue to do business with a set of rules which all have agreed to that includes dispute settlement.

“Now what we do is bring much needed stability back to the North American market at a time when, because of COVID-19 and the dropping price of oil, we really do need to bring stability back to North America.”

Robertson acknowledges each country still must go through the steps to confirm conditions for implementation have been met after which the USMCA will replace the current North American Free Trade Agreement.

China on the UN Human Rights Council raises concern (interview)

Canada a casualty of U.S.’s underprepared pandemic response, says former ambassador

Flattening the global curve

A $5 trillion global financial injection

Help for vulnerable countries

Support for global public health initiatives

A summit amid global frictions

Table of Contents

Introduction

A Difficult Backdrop

The Money Problem

The Health Crisis

What should come out of the meeting?

What do we expect from the meeting?

And if the G20 can’t or won’t act?

Looking Forward

Resources

Any moves President Trump makes to lift restrictions likely to be blocked by state governments, diplomats say

Trudeau: ‘Enough is enough. Go home and stay home.’

Trump v. the experts

‘Please, God, stay home’