Trump or Biden: What it means for Canada

      Comments Off on Trump or Biden: What it means for Canada

Biden or More Trump: What Canadians Need to Know about the 2020 U.S. Election

Biden_vs_Trump_Header.jpg

Image credit: Force Ten Design

PRIMER

by Colin Robertson
CGAI Vice-President & Fellow
October 2020

DOWNLOAD PDF

Table of Contents

Introduction

That Nov. 3 is the “most consequential” U.S. election in our lifetime is likely correct and not just for Americans. If it’s four more years of Donald Trump, then the preppers and survivalists may be on to something. Whatever and whenever the results, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is right to say that Canada needs to be “ready for all outcomes”.

Canada’s relationship with the U.S. is the consequential one. NORAD safeguards our security, although whoever forms the next administration is going to press us to invest in a new North Warning System and to increase our defence spending to the NATO target of two per cent of GDP (we currently spend 1.3 per cent).  The new Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement (CUSMA) guarantees access to what is still the biggest market in the world and the preferred entry point for fledgling Canadian exporters. Our shared environment is managed through a web of agreements dating back to the Boundary Waters Treaty and the International Joint Commission (1909).

Despite the asymmetries of power, with care and constant attention we have mostly enjoyed a remarkable partnership that is the envy of other nations. It also leverages our diplomacy. Former prime minister Brian Mulroney described it best: “Canada’s influence in the world is measured to a significant degree by the extent to which we are perceived as having real influence in Washington.”

Geopolitics’ shifting tides suggest that the U.S. is in relative decline and certainly its handling of COVID has shaken global confidence. Although Trump has damaged the American brand, the U.S. still enjoys considerable hard and soft power. Canada cannot change its geography, nor would we want to. So, we need to keep investing in our most important relationship, no matter who is president.

TOP OF PAGE

If Trump Wins

After the duelling town halls (Oct.15), the Daily Beast headline caught the zeitgeist of the campaign: “The Biden and Trump Shows: It’s Mr. Rogers vs. ‘Someone’s Crazy Uncle’.” For Trump, re-election will be a reaffirmation of “America First”, but unlike 2016 when he campaigned on themes like “Build the Wall”, “Repeal NAFTA” and “Drain the Swamp”, the platform this time is essentially “More Trump.”

It means a continuation of his transactional approach to issues, and those transactions must serve his domestic priorities. As Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross put it at the outset of NAFTA renegotiations with Canada and Mexico: “We’re trying to do a difficult thing. We’re asking two countries to give up some privileges that they have enjoyed for 22 years. And we’re not in a position to offer anything in return.”

 

Biden_or_More_Trump1.jpg

The Trudeaus and Trumps in the Oval Office 2017 Source PMO

Trump has revolutionized personal diplomacy through his constant tweets. They have obliged foreign ministries to set up 24/7 Trump watches. It has been a revolving door for those minding his national security, defence and foreign policies. Despite its incoherence and unpredictability, Trump’s view of the world remains that set out in his inaugural address:

For many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry; subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military. We’ve defended other nations’ borders while refusing to defend our own. And spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay. We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon … From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first.

And as he told West Point graduates in June:

We are restoring the fundamental principles that the job of the American soldier is not to rebuild foreign nations, but defend – and defend strongly – our nation from foreign enemies. We are ending the era of endless wars. In its place is a renewed, clear-eyed focus on defending America’s vital interests. It is not the duty of U.S. troops to solve ancient conflicts in faraway lands that many people have never even heard of. We are not the policemen of the world.

Acting on his contempt for multilateralism, Trump pulled the USA out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, UNESCO, the UN Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Open Skies Treaty. He refused to join the global migration pact and the European-led efforts to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 or the Franco-German Alliance on Multilateralism.

We can expect withdrawals from more multilateral organizations, starting with the World Trade Organization (WTO). He also promises to let lapse the New START accord, which limited the number of strategic nuclear warheads deployed by the United States and Russia. He has tried to reduce U.S. contributions to the UN – U.S. funding accounts for close to 1/5 of the UN budget – but Congress has sustained the U.S. support. Trump’s speeches at the UN have been bombastic and defiantly unilateralist. His debut speech (2017) to UNGA was an ode to sovereignty,  telling delegates that “our success depends on a coalition of strong, independent nations that embrace their sovereignty, to promote security, prosperity, and peace for themselves and for the world.”

Alliances don’t figure much in the Trump world view. As two of his principal advisors, H.R. McMaster and Gary D. Cohn, phrased it in the Wall Street Journal  (May 2017): “The world is not a ‘global community’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage.”

In a recent discussion at the Aspen Institute, current National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien described the Trump approach as dealing “with the world as it is and not as we wish it to be and we don’t turn a blind eye to the conduct of our competitors or adversaries… the idea of leading from behind and strategic patience has been cast aside by this administration… America First but not America Alone.” O’Brien summarized the Trump achievements: destruction of the ISIS Caliphate, American hostages brought home, replacement of NAFTA with USMCA and revised trade deals with Korea and Japan, curbing undocumented refugees from Central America, better burden sharing within NATO, stronger military including the creation of the Space Force, improved relations with India and Brazil, revitalized alliances in the Indo-Pacific, peace agreement with the Taliban and troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq, pressure campaign on Iran and its allies in the region, the Abraham Accords bringing peace between the Gulf Arabs, and now Sudan with Israel and the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem.

Looking ahead, O’Brien also said that a Trump administration is “not going to stay in international organizations that are corrupt or that are totally controlled by the Chinese if we can’t reform them. We’re going to try and reform them first. We’re not going to stay involved in the Human Rights Council or the WHO where they’re fully corrupt.”

Trump’s trade wars – tariffs and quotas –  have been aimed at adversaries, like China, as well as allies like Canada; in Canada’s case, often using the dubious claim of defending ‘national security’. Trump’s trade actions are challenged at the World Trade Organization. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Trump tariffs have cost the average US household $1277 a year while the New York Fed points out their cost to American manufacturers that rely on imports.

Mr. Trump claims, falsely, that the WTO takes advantage of the U.S. For Canada, which is leading efforts to reform WTO dispute settlement, a second Trump administration means the threat of more tariffs – blueberries may be next – and quota arrangements, whether formal as with autos or informal as with aluminum.

A Trump administration devoted to further deregulation, fossil fuel exploitation, more tariffs and lower taxes also presents complications for Canada. It will be hard to square competitiveness with a green shift and social justice redistribution if the U.S. is headed in the opposite direction.

Immigration to the US has halved under Donald Trump, to about 600,000 people per year — a level not seen since the 1980s — according to an analysis by William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution. As Frey told the New York Times, the drop “is clearly a result of Trump’s restrictive immigration measures, including immigrant bans from selected countries, greater limits on refugees, and generating fear among other potential immigrant groups over this administration’s unwelcoming policies.”

Trump has sliced US refugee admissions to such an extent that Canada is now the lead refugee resettlement country.  Canada resettled 28,000 refugees in 2018, while the U.S. resettled 23,000, down from 33,000 in 2017 and 97,000 in 2016.

TOP OF PAGE

If Biden Wins

Life for Canada would be easier with a Joe Biden administration. An internationalist, as vice-president he told the World Economic Forum three days before leaving office in 2017 that “for the past seven decades, the choices we have made – particularly the United States and our allies in Europe – have steered our world down a clear path. In recent years, it has become evident that the consensus upholding this system is facing increasing pressures, from within and from without. It’s imperative that we act urgently to defend the liberal international order.”

Biden_or_More_Trump3.jpg

Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden 2016 Source PMO

It’s a theme Biden returned to in his 2019 speeches at the Munich Security Conference (February) and at CUNY New York (July). At Munich he promised that the “America I see does not wish to turn our back to the world or our allies. The America I see – and I mean this from the bottom of my heart – cherishes the free press, democracy, the rule of law.” In New York he promised “to once more place America at the head of the table, leading the world to address the most urgent global challenges” by using multilateralism and valuing democratic allies like Canada.

There is a tendency to assume Americans have slipped into a Trumpian isolationism but a recent survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, tracking American attitudes for decades, says Americans remain supportive of an active U.S. role in the world. Solid majorities support U.S. security alliances and free trade as the best ways to maintain peace and prosperity. In his July 2019 foreign policy speech, he committed to a summit of democracies modelled on Obama’s nuclear security summits, where leaders would commit to strengthening democracy at home and overseas and “make concrete commitments to take on corruption and advance human rights in their own nations.”

Biden_or_More_Trump4.jpg

Biden would come to office with the most foreign policy experience of any president since John Quincy Adams, although former Defense secretary and CIA director Robert Gates caustically writes in his memoir that Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”  Biden will also be able to draw on formidable talent well versed in national security– veterans of the Obama and Clinton administrations – as well as Republicans who declared Mr. Trump “unfit” and support Mr. Biden (and we can be sure smart  embassies are reaching out to those on these lists). There is also a major rebuilding job within the professional ranks of the demoralized US Foreign Service.

When asked about foreign interference in the election during the last presidential debate Biden said: “We know that Russia has been involved, China has been involved to some degree, and now we learn that Iran has been involved. They will pay a price if I’m elected.”

On Russia, Biden would align more with the rest of the G7 in seeing Russian revanchism with its immediate neighbours and mischief-making in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and through cyber-subversion and disinformation. Biden will also have to address the problem identified by then Defense Secretary James Mattis in the US Nuclear Posture Review (2018): ”Russia is modernizing these [nuclear] weapons as well as its other strategic systems. Even more troubling has been Russia’s adoption of military strategies and capabilities that rely on nuclear escalation for their success.” Biden promises in ’Why America Must Lead Again,’ Foreign Affairs (2020) to “…pursue an extension of the New START treaty, an anchor of strategic stability between the United States and Russia, and use that as a foundation for new arms control arrangements.”

Biden also promises to “reassess” the Saudi Arabia “and US support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.” Even before the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi-Canada relations have been strained on human rights issues.

Biden’s first priority must be a daunting domestic agenda, starting with COVID recovery, along with his commitments to such issues as clean energy, immigration reform and action on social and racial justice. His social justice and green and clean energy policies align with those of the Trudeau government.

Canada needs to leverage off this domestic agenda and identify the natural fits. “Building back better” and the trillion-dollar infrastructure plan come with the protectionist promise of “Buy American.” We need to persuade Biden of the benefits of continental collaboration on resilient, clean infrastructure, including our shared network of pipelines and electrical grids. As reports from Harvard’s Belfer Center and the Council on Foreign Relations underline, this will guarantee both dependable supply chains and mutual prosperity.

The new North American trade accord includes a competitiveness committee that we need to activate and harness for continuous improvements. Voters tell pollsters that they expect a fairer distribution of the gains of globalization, including accountability for the environment and human rights. Why not start in North America?

Biden has set himself a big agenda. It is hard to run too many things through the U.S. system at once. However, Biden’s Senate experience (1973-2009) and then as vice-president (2009-16) chairing both the Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees means he knows how to legislate and get it done.

The separation of powers means that even if the Democrats control both chambers in Congress as Bill Clinton did in 1992 and Barack Obama did in 2008, they need to focus on a few priorities, starting with recovery and reform at home. As Biden wrote in a 2017 New York Times op-ed: “In over 45 years of working in global affairs, I’ve observed a simple truth: America’s ability to lead the world depends not just on the example of our power, but on the power of our example.”

Getting time with a new administration is always difficult, so we need to go in with solutions rather than complaints. While Biden threatens to scuttle the Keystone pipeline, we must avoid making it a litmus test of the relationship and instead work it out. But we should be under no illusion: Biden is as green as Obama. As he said in the final presidential debate, he is committed to “transition away from the oil industry.”

It helps that Biden likes Trudeau. After the 2016 election, Biden publicly called on him to be a defender of the “liberal international order”. While we can count on Trudeau to rekindle the relationship, our premiers and legislators need to continue their own outreach to their American counterparts. The premiers played a critical role in persuading their gubernatorial counterparts to sign on to a reciprocity agreement on procurement in the Obama administration infrastructure program as part of the recovery from the 2008-9 recession.

TOP OF PAGE

Looking forward: Debt, Division, COVID & China

Donald Trump has been a daily part of Canadian life these past four years with his tweets and pronouncements. While he ‘entertained’ as host of the Apprentice, as President of the Free World he has shocked, frightened and angered Canadians. This we will not miss. A recent survey conducted by ABACUS, says 75 percent of Canadians would vote for Joe Biden and 25 percent for Donald Trump.

In an essay for the Lowy Institute, Brookings scholar Thomas Wright worries that a re-elected Donald Trump would  feel “vindicated and emboldened. He will surround himself with loyalists and will act without constraint. The world may be irrevocably altered — alliances may come to an end, the global economy could close, and democracy could go into rapid retreat.”

A Joe Biden administration, on the other hand, writes Wright, would be a “reprieve” for the rules-based international order. The question will be how closely he hews to the Obama approach on which he has campaigned. Wright says the debate will be between the “restorationists” – those who would continue Obama’s approach, and “reformers”- those who would challenge parts of it on issues like China, foreign economic policy, the Middle East, and democracy. Regardless of the outcome, we also need to keep in mind that as a recent Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey illustrates, Republicans and Democrats see the world and its threats differently  and these divisions will affect US policy-making.

Whoever forms the next administration faces a world ravaged by COVID. The World Bank warns that the pandemic is relegating 150 million people to extreme poverty. Trudeau has championed COVID support for the developing world. So why not offer to work with the next administration around the delivery of vaccines that only the U.S. military can achieve, and then on community health drawing on Canadian experience?

The next administration also faces formidable financial challenges. At 17.9 per cent of GDP in FY 2020 the U.S. federal deficit is almost twice as large than at the worst of the 2009 Great Recession. The federal debt, measured against the size of the economy,  is larger than at any time since the Second World War. Interest on the debt is greater than the budgets of Homeland Security, State, Commerce, Education, Energy, HUD, Interior and Justice.

Managing China will stay at the top of the president’s inbox. After imposing tariffs on China, Trump tried the carrot of a trade deal and a personal relationship with President Xi Jinping. He now blames China for the “China virus” pandemic and is confronting Chinese aggressiveness around Taiwan and freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific. The rising Chinese threat is reflected in current U.S. strategic doctrine, the National Security Strategy (2017), which describes China as a revisionist power wanting “to erode American security and prosperity” and “shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests.” The Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy (2018) describes China as a “strategic competitor” that seeks “Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in the future.” In his speech, “Communist China and the Free World’s Future” (July, 2020), Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said engagement was a failure and China is pursuing its“decades-long desire for global hegemony of Chinese communism.”

Biden_or_More_Trump5.jpg

While the tone will be different, Biden and Congress will be tough with China on trade issues like intellectual property and forced technology transfers, on Chinese infringements of “one country, two systems” in Hong Kong, and on human rights issues like repression of the Uighurs. But again, Biden looks to collective action, writing in Foreign Affairs that “the most effective way to meet that challenge is to build a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China’s abusive behaviors and human rights violations, even as we seek to cooperate with Beijing on issues where our interests converge.”

In the final presidential debate Biden picked up on this theme accusing Trump of embracing “thugs like [Kim Jong-un] in North Korea and the Chinese president [Xi Jinping] and [Russia’s Vladimir] Putin and others, and he pokes his finger in the eye of all of our friends, all of our allies… We need to be having the rest of our friends with us saying to China: these are the rules. You play by them or you’re going to pay the price for not playing by them, economically.”

With Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig held hostage since Canada proceeded with the extradition request for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in December 2019, we have real stakes in this file. Surveys across the democracies indicate increasingly negative attitudes toward China, and in foreign ministries the policy debate on China is resetting from engagement to containment. Canadian attitudes have shown a similar shift toward distrust of China. Where once Canada aimed at comprehensive engagement, Trudeau now speaks of Chinese “coercive diplomacy” and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan talks of “hostage diplomacy”.

 

TOP OF PAGE

APPENDIX

Basics of the Canada-U.S. Relationship

The “golden rule” of Canada-U.S. relations is very simple Brian Mulroney astutely observed: “We can disagree without being disagreeable. The Americans are very important to us. We know they are, notwithstanding the differences, our best ally, our closest neighbour, our biggest customer.” Relationships matter and it starts at the top with the prime minister and president.

If the Trudeau-Obama relationship was characterized as a ‘bromance’ it has been much more difficult with Mr. Trump who seems to prefer dealing with despots rather than democrats. Probably the low point of the Trudeau-Trump personal relationship came at the end of the G7 summit in Charlevoix (June, 2018) when Trump repudiated U.S. signature to the summit communique and tweeted that Trudeau was “so meek and mild…very dishonest & weak”. That Trudeau has restored the personal relationship is a tribute to his perseverance and reflective of another Mulroney observation that the most important relationship for any Canadian prime minister is that with the U.S. president.

When prime ministers and presidents meet, they usually begin their discussions with the big picture: the geostrategic issues of international peace and security, finance and economics, climate and migration. Then they turn to the bilateral, usually conveniently sorted into three big baskets: defence and security; trade and the border; energy, environment and climate.

In her confirmation testimony in July before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ambassador-designate Aldona Wos identified the priority areas for Canada-U.S. international focus as cyber-China, Russia/Ukraine, Iran, Venezuela, counterterrorism, cyber-security and 5G network standards, peacekeeping and the Arctic. These issues are not likely to change no matter who is president.

Defence and Security: Our military, law enforcement and security agencies all work closely together. The U.S. is our principal ally through a series of agreements dating back to before the Second World War, of which the most important is the 1958 bi-national North American Aerospace Defence Agreement (NORAD). The only bi-national military command in the world covers air and maritime defence. We are also jointly committed to collective security through NATO (1949) with a Canadian battle group in Latvia (since 2017) and fighter jets, frigates and submarines patrolling the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and Central and Eastern Europe. Canada and the U.S. share intelligence through the Five Eyes nations group.

Biden_or_More_Trump6.jpg

Source: DND

Trade and the Border: Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, almost 400,000 people and $US2 billion worth of goods and services crossed our borders daily. The border has been closed since March; how and when it will reopen is yet to be determined. But it seems likely that in addition to trade and security (especially since 9/11 when Canada and the USA sought to create a North American security perimeter), public health will now be part of the screening process. Alberta is experimenting with testing at the point of entry and then a second test days later to mitigate quarantine restrictions.

Canada is the largest market for export goods for over 30 states. The United States is Canada’s most important trading partner by a wide margin and it is characterized by heavily integrated supply chains, notably in auto manufacturing. According to the U.S. Trade Representative, U.S. goods and services trade with Canada totalled an estimated $718.5 billion in 2018. Exports were $363.8 billion; imports were $354.7 billion. The U.S. goods and services trade surplus with Canada was $9.1 billion in 2018. According to the Department of Commerce, U.S. exports of goods and services to Canada supported an estimated 1.6 million jobs in 2015. Canadian estimates of jobs generated in the U.S. through our bilateral trade tally almost 9 million, while 1.9 million Canadian jobs are related to Canada’s exports to the U.S.

Biden_or_More_Trump7.jpg

Source: Agriculture Canada

Approximately 75 per cent of our exports go to the U.S. and the U.S. accounts for about 51 per cent of our imports. In 2019, the United States was the recipient of more than one-third of our foreign investment and accounted for about half of our foreign direct investment. The United States remains Canada’s main investment partner. Successive Canadian governments, dating back before Confederation, have consistently sought rules-based commercial agreements of which the 2020 CUSMA is but the latest iteration. Our deep economic integration gives us privileged, but not always secure, access to the biggest market in the world. It requires a permanent campaign by all levels of government in tandem with business, labour and civil society to fend off the forces of protectionism at the local, county, state and national levels.

Energy, Environment and Climate: The energy relationship is vital to both countries – electricity generated in Quebec literally lights up Broadway. Canada is the largest source of U.S. energy imports and the second-largest destination for U.S. energy exports. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, in 2019 energy accounted for US$85 billion, or 27 per cent, of the value of all U.S. imports from Canada. Crude oil and petroleum products accounted for 91 per cent of the value of U.S. energy imports from Canada and 89 per cent of the value of U.S. energy exports to Canada. The United States exported US$23 billion worth of crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas and electricity to Canada in 2019, about eight per cent of the value of all U.S. exports to Canada. The Canadian and U.S. electricity grid is deeply integrated with more than 30 major transmission arteries connecting all contiguous Canadian provinces to neighbouring U.S. states.

Biden_or_More_Trump8.jpg

Source: Natural Resources Canada

We share joint stewardship for our environment and lead the world in innovative cross-border practices. The Boundary Waters Treaty (1909) established the International Joint Commission that tends to the shared waters along our 5,525-mile-long border. The Great Lakes, with almost 20 per cent of global fresh water, receive special attention. Commitments to protect aquatic habitats, curb invasive species and help coastal communities adapt to climate change were added in 2012 to the 1972 Water Quality Agreement. The rigorous negotiations around the Canada-U.S. Acid Rain Treaty (1991) and the multilateral Montreal Protocol on the ozone layer (1987) serve as a model for how we deal with climate change. Canada and the U.S. are also members of the Arctic Council, established in Canada in 1996 with the signing of the Ottawa Declaration.

Canada in the U.S.: In addition to our embassy in Washington, we have 12 consulates-general throughout the U.S. A number of the provinces also have U.S.-based representatives. Given the depth and importance of our trade and investment, we should have a Canadian presence in every state to act as our eyes, ears and voice. With well over a million star-spangled Canadians living and working in the U.S., we need to rethink how we do business, including making greater use of honorary consuls.

Basic Facts on the U.S. Election

  • On Tuesday, Nov. 3, Americans will go to the polls to elect their president and 35 members of the Senate (currently held by 23 Republicans and 12 Democrats). The GOP currently holds 53 seats and the Democrats and Independents hold 47 seats in the 100-member Senate. All 435 members of the House of Representatives are up for election. The Democrats hold 231 seats and the GOP 184. There are gubernatorial elections in 11 states with the GOP defending seven and the Democrats four. Nationally, the GOP holds 26 governorships and the Democrats 24. Voters will also elect 5,876 of the country’s 7,383 state legislators as well as local sheriffs, judges, county and city councilors. They will also decide on state and civic initiatives, propositions and constitutional amendments. As set out in the Constitution, the next U.S. Congress will begin at noon on January 3, 2021 and the Chief Justice will administer the oath of office to the president at noon on January 20, 2021.
  • The U.S. Elections Project predicts a high turnout of eligible voters (in 2016 it was 55.5 per cent). It estimates (October 21) that over 41 million Americans (nearly 1/3 of the turnout in 2016) have already cast their ballots either in person or through the mail. Over 50 million  – 24 million registered Democrats and 16 million registered Republicans – have requested mail-in ballots.
  • In 2016, the Census calculated that almost two-thirds of eligible white voters cast a ballot. African-American turnout fell to 59 per cent, a drop from both of Obama’s elections. Latino turnout was at 48 per cent. Young people stayed home: only about 46 per cent of eligible voters under 30 turned out, far below the participation among those 45 and older.

 

Biden_or_More_Trump9.jpg

Source: US Census Bureau

  • The total cost of the 2020 election will approach $11 billion, more than 50 per cent pricier than 2016, according to estimates from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Biden_or_More_Trump10.jpg

Source: Pew Foundation

TOP OF PAGE

Further Sources

Both Brookings and the Council on Foreign Relations have analyzed Biden’s and Trump’s foreign policies.  For public opinion surveys, look to the Pew Foundation and Chicago Council on Global Affairs. PBS Frontline’s The Choice 2020: Trump vs Biden is riveting watching. For a comprehensive account and insights from a practitioner into American diplomacy read Robert Zoellick’s America in the World: A History of US Diplomacy and Foreign Policy.

There are many books on the Trump presidency; my favourite are Rage (2020) and Fear (2018) by Bob Woodward, and the Washington Post fact-check team’s account Donald Trump and his Assault on Truth (2020). Trump’s own autobiography The Art of the Deal (1987)  is still the best insight into how he operates. Joe Biden’s autobiographies Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics (2007) and Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose (2017) should be read along with Evan Osnos’ Joe Biden: The Life, the run and what matters now (2020) and Jules Witcover’s Joe Biden: A life of Trial and Redemption (2019).

The U.S. embassy and Canadian embassy provide basic facts and the embassies’ state trade fact sheets are especially useful.

For a contemporary view on managing Canada-U.S. relations, listen to former ambassador David MacNaughton in conversation with Paul Wells. For an historical perspective, browse through the Washington Diaries of Allan Gottlieb, the Obi-Wan Kenobi of Canadian diplomacy in the United States, and look to his C.D. Howe lecture on Romanticism and Realism in Canadian Foreign Policy.

Trump or Biden Canada has to be ready

      Comments Off on Trump or Biden Canada has to be ready

Whether it’s Trump or Biden, Canada has to be ready to get to work

By COLIN ROBERTSON      OCTOBER 28, 2020
Canada cannot change its geography. Nor would we want to. For Canada, the U.S. is the consequential relationship, and we need to keep investing in it.

Nov. 3 is the “most consequential” U.S. election in our lifetime—and not just for Americans. If it’s four more years of Donald Trump, then the preppers and survivalists may be on to something. Whatever and whenever the results, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is right to say that Canada needs to be “ready for all outcomes.”

For Trump, re-election will reaffirm “America First”—but unlike 2016, when he campaigned on themes like “Build the Wall” and “Drain the Swamp,” his platform this time is “More Trump” and his transactional approach to issues.

We can expect withdrawals from more multilateral organizations, starting with the World Trade Organization. Trump claims, falsely, that the WTO takes advantage of the U.S. For Canada, which is leading efforts to reform WTO dispute settlement, a second Trump administration means the threat of more tariffs—blueberries may be next—and quota arrangements, whether formal, as with autos, or informal, as with aluminum.

A Trump administration devoted to further deregulation and lower taxes also presents complications for Trudeau. It will be hard to square Canadian competitiveness with a green shift and social justice redistribution if the U.S. is headed in the opposite direction.

Life for Canada would be easier with Joe Biden. An internationalist, Biden will utilize multilateralism and value allies like Canada. Also, Biden likes Trudeau. After the 2016 election, Biden passed him the torch as defender of the “liberal international order.” Aside from a more predictable and rational administration, Biden endorses social justice and green and clean energy policies that would align with Trudeau’s plans.

Biden has an ambitious agenda. In the U.S. system, it is hard to run too many things through the system at once because of the separation of powers. Even if the Democrats control both chambers in Congress, as did both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in their first terms, it’s still difficult to get things done quickly. Biden faces a daunting domestic agenda, starting with COVID-19 recovery, then commitments to clean energy, immigration reform, and action on social and racial justice.

Canada needs to leverage off this domestic agenda and identify the natural fits. “Building back better” in the U.S. comes with the protectionist promise of “Buy American.” We need to persuade Biden of the benefits of continental collaboration on resilient, clean infrastructure, including our shared network of pipelines and electrical grids. As reports from Harvard’s Belfer Center and the Council on Foreign Relations underline, this will guarantee both dependable supply chains and mutual prosperity.

Getting time with a new administration is always difficult, so we need to go in with solutions rather than complaints. While Biden threatens to scuttle the Keystone pipeline, we must avoid making it a litmus test of the relationship but rather work it out.

Voters tell pollsters that they expect a fairer distribution of the gains of globalization, including accountability for the environment and human rights. Why not start in North America? The new North American trade accord includes a committee. We need to harness clean technological innovation for continuous improvements that reinforce competitiveness.

We can count on Trudeau to rekindle his relationship with Biden. Brian Mulroney best described the importance of prime ministers cultivating good relations with presidents: “Canada’s influence in the world is measured to a significant degree by the extent to which we are perceived as having real influence in Washington.”

Our premiers and legislators also need to continue their own outreach to their American counterparts. The premiers played a critical role in persuading their governor counterparts to sign onto a reciprocity agreement on procurement in the Obama administration infrastructure program as part of the recovery from the 2008-09 recession.

The shifting tides of geopolitics suggest that the U.S. is in relative decline and that Americans favour isolationism. But tracking surveys by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs consistently say Americans remain supportive of an active U.S. role in the world. Solid majorities support U.S. security alliances and free trade as the best ways to maintain peace and prosperity.

While Trump has damaged the American brand, the U.S. still enjoys considerable hard and soft power. Canada cannot change its geography. Nor would we want to. For Canada, the U.S. is the consequential relationship. So, we need to keep investing in our most important relationship, no matter who is its president.

Colin Robertson is vice-president and fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

Biden or More Trump: What Canadians Need to Know about the 2020 U.S. Election

Biden_vs_Trump_Header.jpg

Image credit: Force Ten Design

PRIMER

by Colin Robertson
CGAI Vice-President & Fellow
October 2020

DOWNLOAD PDF

Table of Contents

Introduction

That Nov. 3 is the “most consequential” U.S. election in our lifetime is likely correct and not just for Americans. If it’s four more years of Donald Trump, then the preppers and survivalists may be on to something. Whatever and whenever the results, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is right to say that Canada needs to be “ready for all outcomes”.

Canada’s relationship with the U.S. is the consequential one. NORAD safeguards our security, although whoever forms the next administration is going to press us to invest in a new North Warning System and to increase our defence spending to the NATO target of two per cent of GDP (we currently spend 1.3 per cent).  The new Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement (CUSMA) guarantees access to what is still the biggest market in the world and the preferred entry point for fledgling Canadian exporters. Our shared environment is managed through a web of agreements dating back to the Boundary Waters Treaty and the International Joint Commission (1909).

Despite the asymmetries of power, with care and constant attention we have mostly enjoyed a remarkable partnership that is the envy of other nations. It also leverages our diplomacy. Former prime minister Brian Mulroney described it best: “Canada’s influence in the world is measured to a significant degree by the extent to which we are perceived as having real influence in Washington.”

Geopolitics’ shifting tides suggest that the U.S. is in relative decline and certainly its handling of COVID has shaken global confidence. Although Trump has damaged the American brand, the U.S. still enjoys considerable hard and soft power. Canada cannot change its geography, nor would we want to. So, we need to keep investing in our most important relationship, no matter who is president.

TOP OF PAGE

If Trump Wins

After the duelling town halls (Oct.15), the Daily Beast headline caught the zeitgeist of the campaign: “The Biden and Trump Shows: It’s Mr. Rogers vs. ‘Someone’s Crazy Uncle’.” For Trump, re-election will be a reaffirmation of “America First”, but unlike 2016 when he campaigned on themes like “Build the Wall”, “Repeal NAFTA” and “Drain the Swamp”, the platform this time is essentially “More Trump.”

It means a continuation of his transactional approach to issues, and those transactions must serve his domestic priorities. As Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross put it at the outset of NAFTA renegotiations with Canada and Mexico: “We’re trying to do a difficult thing. We’re asking two countries to give up some privileges that they have enjoyed for 22 years. And we’re not in a position to offer anything in return.”

 

Biden_or_More_Trump1.jpg

The Trudeaus and Trumps in the Oval Office 2017 Source PMO

Trump has revolutionized personal diplomacy through his constant tweets. They have obliged foreign ministries to set up 24/7 Trump watches. It has been a revolving door for those minding his national security, defence and foreign policies. Despite its incoherence and unpredictability, Trump’s view of the world remains that set out in his inaugural address:

For many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry; subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military. We’ve defended other nations’ borders while refusing to defend our own. And spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay. We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon … From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first.

And as he told West Point graduates in June:

We are restoring the fundamental principles that the job of the American soldier is not to rebuild foreign nations, but defend – and defend strongly – our nation from foreign enemies. We are ending the era of endless wars. In its place is a renewed, clear-eyed focus on defending America’s vital interests. It is not the duty of U.S. troops to solve ancient conflicts in faraway lands that many people have never even heard of. We are not the policemen of the world.

Acting on his contempt for multilateralism, Trump pulled the USA out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, UNESCO, the UN Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Open Skies Treaty. He refused to join the global migration pact and the European-led efforts to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 or the Franco-German Alliance on Multilateralism.

We can expect withdrawals from more multilateral organizations, starting with the World Trade Organization (WTO). He also promises to let lapse the New START accord, which limited the number of strategic nuclear warheads deployed by the United States and Russia. He has tried to reduce U.S. contributions to the UN – U.S. funding accounts for close to 1/5 of the UN budget – but Congress has sustained the U.S. support. Trump’s speeches at the UN have been bombastic and defiantly unilateralist. His debut speech (2017) to UNGA was an ode to sovereignty,  telling delegates that “our success depends on a coalition of strong, independent nations that embrace their sovereignty, to promote security, prosperity, and peace for themselves and for the world.”

Alliances don’t figure much in the Trump world view. As two of his principal advisors, H.R. McMaster and Gary D. Cohn, phrased it in the Wall Street Journal  (May 2017): “The world is not a ‘global community’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage.”

In a recent discussion at the Aspen Institute, current National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien described the Trump approach as dealing “with the world as it is and not as we wish it to be and we don’t turn a blind eye to the conduct of our competitors or adversaries… the idea of leading from behind and strategic patience has been cast aside by this administration… America First but not America Alone.” O’Brien summarized the Trump achievements: destruction of the ISIS Caliphate, American hostages brought home, replacement of NAFTA with USMCA and revised trade deals with Korea and Japan, curbing undocumented refugees from Central America, better burden sharing within NATO, stronger military including the creation of the Space Force, improved relations with India and Brazil, revitalized alliances in the Indo-Pacific, peace agreement with the Taliban and troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq, pressure campaign on Iran and its allies in the region, the Abraham Accords bringing peace between the Gulf Arabs, and now Sudan with Israel and the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem.

Looking ahead, O’Brien also said that a Trump administration is “not going to stay in international organizations that are corrupt or that are totally controlled by the Chinese if we can’t reform them. We’re going to try and reform them first. We’re not going to stay involved in the Human Rights Council or the WHO where they’re fully corrupt.”

Trump’s trade wars – tariffs and quotas –  have been aimed at adversaries, like China, as well as allies like Canada; in Canada’s case, often using the dubious claim of defending ‘national security’. Trump’s trade actions are challenged at the World Trade Organization. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Trump tariffs have cost the average US household $1277 a year while the New York Fed points out their cost to American manufacturers that rely on imports.

Mr. Trump claims, falsely, that the WTO takes advantage of the U.S. For Canada, which is leading efforts to reform WTO dispute settlement, a second Trump administration means the threat of more tariffs – blueberries may be next – and quota arrangements, whether formal as with autos or informal as with aluminum.

A Trump administration devoted to further deregulation, fossil fuel exploitation, more tariffs and lower taxes also presents complications for Canada. It will be hard to square competitiveness with a green shift and social justice redistribution if the U.S. is headed in the opposite direction.

Immigration to the US has halved under Donald Trump, to about 600,000 people per year — a level not seen since the 1980s — according to an analysis by William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution. As Frey told the New York Times, the drop “is clearly a result of Trump’s restrictive immigration measures, including immigrant bans from selected countries, greater limits on refugees, and generating fear among other potential immigrant groups over this administration’s unwelcoming policies.”

Trump has sliced US refugee admissions to such an extent that Canada is now the lead refugee resettlement country.  Canada resettled 28,000 refugees in 2018, while the U.S. resettled 23,000, down from 33,000 in 2017 and 97,000 in 2016.

TOP OF PAGE

If Biden Wins

Life for Canada would be easier with a Joe Biden administration. An internationalist, as vice-president he told the World Economic Forum three days before leaving office in 2017 that “for the past seven decades, the choices we have made – particularly the United States and our allies in Europe – have steered our world down a clear path. In recent years, it has become evident that the consensus upholding this system is facing increasing pressures, from within and from without. It’s imperative that we act urgently to defend the liberal international order.”

Biden_or_More_Trump3.jpg

Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden 2016 Source PMO

It’s a theme Biden returned to in his 2019 speeches at the Munich Security Conference (February) and at CUNY New York (July). At Munich he promised that the “America I see does not wish to turn our back to the world or our allies. The America I see – and I mean this from the bottom of my heart – cherishes the free press, democracy, the rule of law.” In New York he promised “to once more place America at the head of the table, leading the world to address the most urgent global challenges” by using multilateralism and valuing democratic allies like Canada.

There is a tendency to assume Americans have slipped into a Trumpian isolationism but a recent survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, tracking American attitudes for decades, says Americans remain supportive of an active U.S. role in the world. Solid majorities support U.S. security alliances and free trade as the best ways to maintain peace and prosperity. In his July 2019 foreign policy speech, he committed to a summit of democracies modelled on Obama’s nuclear security summits, where leaders would commit to strengthening democracy at home and overseas and “make concrete commitments to take on corruption and advance human rights in their own nations.”

Biden_or_More_Trump4.jpg

Biden would come to office with the most foreign policy experience of any president since John Quincy Adams, although former Defense secretary and CIA director Robert Gates caustically writes in his memoir that Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”  Biden will also be able to draw on formidable talent well versed in national security– veterans of the Obama and Clinton administrations – as well as Republicans who declared Mr. Trump “unfit” and support Mr. Biden (and we can be sure smart  embassies are reaching out to those on these lists). There is also a major rebuilding job within the professional ranks of the demoralized US Foreign Service.

When asked about foreign interference in the election during the last presidential debate Biden said: “We know that Russia has been involved, China has been involved to some degree, and now we learn that Iran has been involved. They will pay a price if I’m elected.”

On Russia, Biden would align more with the rest of the G7 in seeing Russian revanchism with its immediate neighbours and mischief-making in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and through cyber-subversion and disinformation. Biden will also have to address the problem identified by then Defense Secretary James Mattis in the US Nuclear Posture Review (2018): ”Russia is modernizing these [nuclear] weapons as well as its other strategic systems. Even more troubling has been Russia’s adoption of military strategies and capabilities that rely on nuclear escalation for their success.” Biden promises in ’Why America Must Lead Again,’ Foreign Affairs (2020) to “…pursue an extension of the New START treaty, an anchor of strategic stability between the United States and Russia, and use that as a foundation for new arms control arrangements.”

Biden also promises to “reassess” the Saudi Arabia “and US support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.” Even before the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi-Canada relations have been strained on human rights issues.

Biden’s first priority must be a daunting domestic agenda, starting with COVID recovery, along with his commitments to such issues as clean energy, immigration reform and action on social and racial justice. His social justice and green and clean energy policies align with those of the Trudeau government.

Canada needs to leverage off this domestic agenda and identify the natural fits. “Building back better” and the trillion-dollar infrastructure plan come with the protectionist promise of “Buy American.” We need to persuade Biden of the benefits of continental collaboration on resilient, clean infrastructure, including our shared network of pipelines and electrical grids. As reports from Harvard’s Belfer Center and the Council on Foreign Relations underline, this will guarantee both dependable supply chains and mutual prosperity.

The new North American trade accord includes a competitiveness committee that we need to activate and harness for continuous improvements. Voters tell pollsters that they expect a fairer distribution of the gains of globalization, including accountability for the environment and human rights. Why not start in North America?

Biden has set himself a big agenda. It is hard to run too many things through the U.S. system at once. However, Biden’s Senate experience (1973-2009) and then as vice-president (2009-16) chairing both the Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees means he knows how to legislate and get it done.

The separation of powers means that even if the Democrats control both chambers in Congress as Bill Clinton did in 1992 and Barack Obama did in 2008, they need to focus on a few priorities, starting with recovery and reform at home. As Biden wrote in a 2017 New York Times op-ed: “In over 45 years of working in global affairs, I’ve observed a simple truth: America’s ability to lead the world depends not just on the example of our power, but on the power of our example.”

Getting time with a new administration is always difficult, so we need to go in with solutions rather than complaints. While Biden threatens to scuttle the Keystone pipeline, we must avoid making it a litmus test of the relationship and instead work it out. But we should be under no illusion: Biden is as green as Obama. As he said in the final presidential debate, he is committed to “transition away from the oil industry.”

It helps that Biden likes Trudeau. After the 2016 election, Biden publicly called on him to be a defender of the “liberal international order”. While we can count on Trudeau to rekindle the relationship, our premiers and legislators need to continue their own outreach to their American counterparts. The premiers played a critical role in persuading their gubernatorial counterparts to sign on to a reciprocity agreement on procurement in the Obama administration infrastructure program as part of the recovery from the 2008-9 recession.

TOP OF PAGE

Looking forward: Debt, Division, COVID & China

Donald Trump has been a daily part of Canadian life these past four years with his tweets and pronouncements. While he ‘entertained’ as host of the Apprentice, as President of the Free World he has shocked, frightened and angered Canadians. This we will not miss. A recent survey conducted by ABACUS, says 75 percent of Canadians would vote for Joe Biden and 25 percent for Donald Trump.

In an essay for the Lowy Institute, Brookings scholar Thomas Wright worries that a re-elected Donald Trump would  feel “vindicated and emboldened. He will surround himself with loyalists and will act without constraint. The world may be irrevocably altered — alliances may come to an end, the global economy could close, and democracy could go into rapid retreat.”

A Joe Biden administration, on the other hand, writes Wright, would be a “reprieve” for the rules-based international order. The question will be how closely he hews to the Obama approach on which he has campaigned. Wright says the debate will be between the “restorationists” – those who would continue Obama’s approach, and “reformers”- those who would challenge parts of it on issues like China, foreign economic policy, the Middle East, and democracy. Regardless of the outcome, we also need to keep in mind that as a recent Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey illustrates, Republicans and Democrats see the world and its threats differently  and these divisions will affect US policy-making.

Whoever forms the next administration faces a world ravaged by COVID. The World Bank warns that the pandemic is relegating 150 million people to extreme poverty. Trudeau has championed COVID support for the developing world. So why not offer to work with the next administration around the delivery of vaccines that only the U.S. military can achieve, and then on community health drawing on Canadian experience?

The next administration also faces formidable financial challenges. At 17.9 per cent of GDP in FY 2020 the U.S. federal deficit is almost twice as large than at the worst of the 2009 Great Recession. The federal debt, measured against the size of the economy,  is larger than at any time since the Second World War. Interest on the debt is greater than the budgets of Homeland Security, State, Commerce, Education, Energy, HUD, Interior and Justice.

Managing China will stay at the top of the president’s inbox. After imposing tariffs on China, Trump tried the carrot of a trade deal and a personal relationship with President Xi Jinping. He now blames China for the “China virus” pandemic and is confronting Chinese aggressiveness around Taiwan and freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific. The rising Chinese threat is reflected in current U.S. strategic doctrine, the National Security Strategy (2017), which describes China as a revisionist power wanting “to erode American security and prosperity” and “shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests.” The Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy (2018) describes China as a “strategic competitor” that seeks “Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in the future.” In his speech, “Communist China and the Free World’s Future” (July, 2020), Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said engagement was a failure and China is pursuing its“decades-long desire for global hegemony of Chinese communism.”

Biden_or_More_Trump5.jpg

While the tone will be different, Biden and Congress will be tough with China on trade issues like intellectual property and forced technology transfers, on Chinese infringements of “one country, two systems” in Hong Kong, and on human rights issues like repression of the Uighurs. But again, Biden looks to collective action, writing in Foreign Affairs that “the most effective way to meet that challenge is to build a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China’s abusive behaviors and human rights violations, even as we seek to cooperate with Beijing on issues where our interests converge.”

In the final presidential debate Biden picked up on this theme accusing Trump of embracing “thugs like [Kim Jong-un] in North Korea and the Chinese president [Xi Jinping] and [Russia’s Vladimir] Putin and others, and he pokes his finger in the eye of all of our friends, all of our allies… We need to be having the rest of our friends with us saying to China: these are the rules. You play by them or you’re going to pay the price for not playing by them, economically.”

With Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig held hostage since Canada proceeded with the extradition request for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in December 2019, we have real stakes in this file. Surveys across the democracies indicate increasingly negative attitudes toward China, and in foreign ministries the policy debate on China is resetting from engagement to containment. Canadian attitudes have shown a similar shift toward distrust of China. Where once Canada aimed at comprehensive engagement, Trudeau now speaks of Chinese “coercive diplomacy” and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan talks of “hostage diplomacy”.

 

TOP OF PAGE

APPENDIX

Basics of the Canada-U.S. Relationship

The “golden rule” of Canada-U.S. relations is very simple Brian Mulroney astutely observed: “We can disagree without being disagreeable. The Americans are very important to us. We know they are, notwithstanding the differences, our best ally, our closest neighbour, our biggest customer.” Relationships matter and it starts at the top with the prime minister and president.

If the Trudeau-Obama relationship was characterized as a ‘bromance’ it has been much more difficult with Mr. Trump who seems to prefer dealing with despots rather than democrats. Probably the low point of the Trudeau-Trump personal relationship came at the end of the G7 summit in Charlevoix (June, 2018) when Trump repudiated U.S. signature to the summit communique and tweeted that Trudeau was “so meek and mild…very dishonest & weak”. That Trudeau has restored the personal relationship is a tribute to his perseverance and reflective of another Mulroney observation that the most important relationship for any Canadian prime minister is that with the U.S. president.

When prime ministers and presidents meet, they usually begin their discussions with the big picture: the geostrategic issues of international peace and security, finance and economics, climate and migration. Then they turn to the bilateral, usually conveniently sorted into three big baskets: defence and security; trade and the border; energy, environment and climate.

In her confirmation testimony in July before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ambassador-designate Aldona Wos identified the priority areas for Canada-U.S. international focus as cyber-China, Russia/Ukraine, Iran, Venezuela, counterterrorism, cyber-security and 5G network standards, peacekeeping and the Arctic. These issues are not likely to change no matter who is president.

Defence and Security: Our military, law enforcement and security agencies all work closely together. The U.S. is our principal ally through a series of agreements dating back to before the Second World War, of which the most important is the 1958 bi-national North American Aerospace Defence Agreement (NORAD). The only bi-national military command in the world covers air and maritime defence. We are also jointly committed to collective security through NATO (1949) with a Canadian battle group in Latvia (since 2017) and fighter jets, frigates and submarines patrolling the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and Central and Eastern Europe. Canada and the U.S. share intelligence through the Five Eyes nations group.

Biden_or_More_Trump6.jpg

Source: DND

Trade and the Border: Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, almost 400,000 people and $US2 billion worth of goods and services crossed our borders daily. The border has been closed since March; how and when it will reopen is yet to be determined. But it seems likely that in addition to trade and security (especially since 9/11 when Canada and the USA sought to create a North American security perimeter), public health will now be part of the screening process. Alberta is experimenting with testing at the point of entry and then a second test days later to mitigate quarantine restrictions.

Canada is the largest market for export goods for over 30 states. The United States is Canada’s most important trading partner by a wide margin and it is characterized by heavily integrated supply chains, notably in auto manufacturing. According to the U.S. Trade Representative, U.S. goods and services trade with Canada totalled an estimated $718.5 billion in 2018. Exports were $363.8 billion; imports were $354.7 billion. The U.S. goods and services trade surplus with Canada was $9.1 billion in 2018. According to the Department of Commerce, U.S. exports of goods and services to Canada supported an estimated 1.6 million jobs in 2015. Canadian estimates of jobs generated in the U.S. through our bilateral trade tally almost 9 million, while 1.9 million Canadian jobs are related to Canada’s exports to the U.S.

Biden_or_More_Trump7.jpg

Source: Agriculture Canada

Approximately 75 per cent of our exports go to the U.S. and the U.S. accounts for about 51 per cent of our imports. In 2019, the United States was the recipient of more than one-third of our foreign investment and accounted for about half of our foreign direct investment. The United States remains Canada’s main investment partner. Successive Canadian governments, dating back before Confederation, have consistently sought rules-based commercial agreements of which the 2020 CUSMA is but the latest iteration. Our deep economic integration gives us privileged, but not always secure, access to the biggest market in the world. It requires a permanent campaign by all levels of government in tandem with business, labour and civil society to fend off the forces of protectionism at the local, county, state and national levels.

Energy, Environment and Climate: The energy relationship is vital to both countries – electricity generated in Quebec literally lights up Broadway. Canada is the largest source of U.S. energy imports and the second-largest destination for U.S. energy exports. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, in 2019 energy accounted for US$85 billion, or 27 per cent, of the value of all U.S. imports from Canada. Crude oil and petroleum products accounted for 91 per cent of the value of U.S. energy imports from Canada and 89 per cent of the value of U.S. energy exports to Canada. The United States exported US$23 billion worth of crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas and electricity to Canada in 2019, about eight per cent of the value of all U.S. exports to Canada. The Canadian and U.S. electricity grid is deeply integrated with more than 30 major transmission arteries connecting all contiguous Canadian provinces to neighbouring U.S. states.

Biden_or_More_Trump8.jpg

Source: Natural Resources Canada

We share joint stewardship for our environment and lead the world in innovative cross-border practices. The Boundary Waters Treaty (1909) established the International Joint Commission that tends to the shared waters along our 5,525-mile-long border. The Great Lakes, with almost 20 per cent of global fresh water, receive special attention. Commitments to protect aquatic habitats, curb invasive species and help coastal communities adapt to climate change were added in 2012 to the 1972 Water Quality Agreement. The rigorous negotiations around the Canada-U.S. Acid Rain Treaty (1991) and the multilateral Montreal Protocol on the ozone layer (1987) serve as a model for how we deal with climate change. Canada and the U.S. are also members of the Arctic Council, established in Canada in 1996 with the signing of the Ottawa Declaration.

Canada in the U.S.: In addition to our embassy in Washington, we have 12 consulates-general throughout the U.S. A number of the provinces also have U.S.-based representatives. Given the depth and importance of our trade and investment, we should have a Canadian presence in every state to act as our eyes, ears and voice. With well over a million star-spangled Canadians living and working in the U.S., we need to rethink how we do business, including making greater use of honorary consuls.

Basic Facts on the U.S. Election

  • On Tuesday, Nov. 3, Americans will go to the polls to elect their president and 35 members of the Senate (currently held by 23 Republicans and 12 Democrats). The GOP currently holds 53 seats and the Democrats and Independents hold 47 seats in the 100-member Senate. All 435 members of the House of Representatives are up for election. The Democrats hold 231 seats and the GOP 184. There are gubernatorial elections in 11 states with the GOP defending seven and the Democrats four. Nationally, the GOP holds 26 governorships and the Democrats 24. Voters will also elect 5,876 of the country’s 7,383 state legislators as well as local sheriffs, judges, county and city councilors. They will also decide on state and civic initiatives, propositions and constitutional amendments. As set out in the Constitution, the next U.S. Congress will begin at noon on January 3, 2021 and the Chief Justice will administer the oath of office to the president at noon on January 20, 2021.
  • The U.S. Elections Project predicts a high turnout of eligible voters (in 2016 it was 55.5 per cent). It estimates (October 21) that over 41 million Americans (nearly 1/3 of the turnout in 2016) have already cast their ballots either in person or through the mail. Over 50 million  – 24 million registered Democrats and 16 million registered Republicans – have requested mail-in ballots.
  • In 2016, the Census calculated that almost two-thirds of eligible white voters cast a ballot. African-American turnout fell to 59 per cent, a drop from both of Obama’s elections. Latino turnout was at 48 per cent. Young people stayed home: only about 46 per cent of eligible voters under 30 turned out, far below the participation among those 45 and older.

 

Biden_or_More_Trump9.jpg

Source: US Census Bureau

  • The total cost of the 2020 election will approach $11 billion, more than 50 per cent pricier than 2016, according to estimates from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Biden_or_More_Trump10.jpg

Source: Pew Foundation

TOP OF PAGE

Further Sources

Both Brookings and the Council on Foreign Relations have analyzed Biden’s and Trump’s foreign policies.  For public opinion surveys, look to the Pew Foundation and Chicago Council on Global Affairs. PBS Frontline’s The Choice 2020: Trump vs Biden is riveting watching. For a comprehensive account and insights from a practitioner into American diplomacy read Robert Zoellick’s America in the World: A History of US Diplomacy and Foreign Policy.

There are many books on the Trump presidency; my favourite are Rage (2020) and Fear (2018) by Bob Woodward, and the Washington Post fact-check team’s account Donald Trump and his Assault on Truth (2020). Trump’s own autobiography The Art of the Deal (1987)  is still the best insight into how he operates. Joe Biden’s autobiographies Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics (2007) and Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose (2017) should be read along with Evan Osnos’ Joe Biden: The Life, the run and what matters now (2020) and Jules Witcover’s Joe Biden: A life of Trial and Redemption (2019).

The U.S. embassy and Canadian embassy provide basic facts and the embassies’ state trade fact sheets are especially useful.

For a contemporary view on managing Canada-U.S. relations, listen to former ambassador David MacNaughton in conversation with Paul Wells. For an historical perspective, browse through the Washington Diaries of Allan Gottlieb, the Obi-Wan Kenobi of Canadian diplomacy in the United States, and look to his C.D. Howe lecture on Romanticism and Realism in Canadian Foreign Policy.

Trump or Biden

      Comments Off on Trump or Biden

Corridors headerThis week, Corridors asked what Canada will miss about the Trump administration if Biden wins.

Maryscott Greenwood, managing director of Crestview Strategy: “Canada already misses having Trump’s appointee, U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft, in Ottawa. She proved to be an astute interlocutor for the bilateral relationship and a person who was able to de-escalate brewing conflicts. If Biden wins … Canada will lose a political foil and an atmosphere in which Canada is viewed as a relatively more welcoming landing place for global immigration than the U.S.”

David Wilkins, former U.S. ambassador to Canada: “If Biden keeps his word and immediately cancels the Keystone XL pipeline, Canadians will miss President Trump’s commitment to that vital project. As the world peacekeepers, Canadians may soon understand that despite his gruff exterior, President Trump was a man wholly committed to peace, who through the strength of his will and unique ability to negotiate deals, brokered three extraordinary peace treaties on his watch.”

Colin Robertson, former Canadian diplomat: “Donald Trump has been a daily part of Canadians’ lives these past four years with his tweets and pronouncements. While he ‘entertained’ as host of the Apprentice, as President of the Free World he has shocked, frightened and angered Canadians. This we will not miss.”

What Canada-U.S. trade could look like with Biden as president

Mike Blanchfield

Published Wednesday, October 28, 2020 7:33AM EDT

OTTAWA — Canada coped with nearly four years of Donald Trump rewriting or shredding the international trade rule book. But Canadian hope of a rosy return to rules-based bonhomie with its top trading partner under a Joe Biden presidency might be premature.

That warning comes from numerous trade experts, analysts and diplomats who have watched Canadians cope with Trump’s profound threats to their economic well-being.

Trump’s protectionist trade disruptions have included threatening to rip up the North American trade deal, insulting Canada during the renegotiation of a new agreement and imposing what were viewed as degrading national-security metals tariffs.

The Trudeau government tried to remain civil, but eventually called out the Trump Republicans as America’s most protectionist government. Before Trump, however, that honour belonged to another group: the U.S. Democrats.

Biden would try to restore stability, predictability and respect to Canada-U.S. trade relations, but he is a Democrat, and his party’s economic interests will diverge from Canada’s, said Lawrence Herman, an international trade lawyer with Toronto’s Herman and Associates and a former Canadian diplomat.

“It will not all be a return to sweetness and light.”

If Biden wins it will likely mean an end to the persistent threat of the steel and aluminum tariffs that Trump imposed on Canada in 2018, using executive powers under U.S. trade law that gave the president the right to impose them on national-security grounds.

Trump was, officially, targeting cheap Chinese steel flooding into the U.S. through Canada, imperilling domestic production of an important military commodity. But Trump’s commerce secretary made clear at the time the tariffs were being imposed to pressure Canada and speed up the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Trudeau and his ministers were openly insulted that Canada’s longtime ally was labelling Canada as a security threat.

But even though Biden is expected to be more respectful of trade laws and practices, Herman said Biden is still beholden to anti-trade sentiment within his own party. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist who challenged Biden for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination, views the international trade regime as a boon for corporations and the bane of rank-and-file workers.

Sanders and fellow presidential aspirant Sen. Elizabeth Warren hold real influence in the Democratic party, as does organized labour, Herman noted.

“I don’t want to underestimate the importance of just having a much more friendly overall bilateral relationship and a recognition that Canada is an important country and a good friend to the United States,” said Meredith Lilly, the Simon Reisman chair in international trade at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.

“But on brass-tacks policy items, I don’t think that we should be expecting special favours.”

Biden is advocating Buy American protectionist policies that could prevent Canadian companies from bidding on U.S. infrastructure projects at the state and municipal levels, she said.

Canada has worked around the restrictions by having provincial premiers and state governors negotiate reciprocity agreements that allowed companies to bid on projects in each other’s jurisdictions, said Colin Robertson, a retired diplomat with extensive U.S. experience and the vice-president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

“We’ll make that same argument, and I cannot see any good reason why the American governors would not go for it.”

Then, there’s the controversial Keystone XL pipeline that would carry Alberta oilsands crude through the U.S. Midwest to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. Trump reversed ex-president Barack Obama’s cancellation of the pipeline permit in 2015. Obama acted in the face of widespread concerns from environmental groups that potential spills would cause serious damage.

“Trump has approved it, he supports it. Biden has vowed to kill it early in his administration by rescinding the presidential permit, and that, I believe, will be devastating, particularly to Western Canada and the Canadian energy sector,” David Wilkins, a former U.S. ambassador to Canada for George W. Bush, told a Tuesday video conference hosted by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

David MacNaughton, who was Canada’s ambassador to Washington for most of the Trump era, told the same forum that the transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy will take a long time so the two countries can still work together constructively.

“I would hope that we can find a way to have energy and the environment as a common theme between Canada and the United States. And when the last drop of oil is consumed in the U.S., that it actually comes from Alberta.”

If Trump wins re-election, he will likely extend his use of tariffs and executive orders to sectors beyond manufacturing, including intellectual property, digital trade and patents, said Herman.

In January, Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault hinted that he might require American online streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon to pay sales tax in Canada.

“Trump could respond to that with tariffs on Canadian digital services,” said Herman.

“Trump has shown a willingness to use executive powers in a way that no other administration has done.”

Canada dodged another major trade bullet with Trump when it managed to negotiate a new North American trade deal with the U.S. and Mexico to replace the much-maligned NAFTA.

But there are no guarantees that the new Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA as it is known domestically, would provide any certainty with a second Trump administration, said Lilly.

Trump backed down on Tuesday from his summer threat to reimpose aluminum sanctions under national-security provisions, which he originally levied despite CUSMA.

But Lilly sees future problems in CUSMA’s crucial auto-sector chapter that increased the amount of North American content required for new automobiles.

“Contrary to what some in the sector have been touting as a real positive, I think that overall, the agreement is going to make the manufacturing of cars in North America more expensive,” said Lilly.

“The auto manufacturers in the United States have heavy incentives to use American labour in North American cars. If they’re looking to pay high wages in the auto sector, they’re much more likely to relocate those jobs in the United States rather than in Canada.”

Lilly said the CUSMA won’t fully protect Canada because Trump doesn’t see his northern neighbour as particularly special.

“After four years, I think Canada has come to the conclusion that the United States does not have our back.”

China and Genocide

      Comments Off on China and Genocide

‘We need courage’: Bloc, NDP MPs push for House to recognize Uyghur genocide in face of Beijing pressure

By NEIL MOSS      OCTOBER 28, 2020
Chinese Ambassador Cong Peiwu told reporters on Oct. 15 a parliamentary recognition that the Chinese government is committing genocide against the Uyghurs would be met with a ‘strong reaction.’

Following a recent subcommittee proclamation that the Chinese persecution of Uyghur Muslims amounts to genocide, Bloc and NDP MPs on the subcommittee are urging the House of Commons to formally recognize that genocide has taken place.

Bloc Québécois MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, Que.), vice-chair of the House Subcommittee on International Human Rights, said a House recognition that genocide has taken place should happen swiftly.

“I hope it is going to happen as soon as possible—the fastest we can do,” he said.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe said he doesn’t see why there wouldn’t be support for such a recognition, as the subcommittee’s Oct. 21 statement had the backing of all parties, but whether it will happen, he thinks, is a toss-up.

NDP MP Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, Alta.), her party’s subcommittee member, said the issue is “pressing.”

“There are people being sexually assaulted. There are people being tortured. There are people dying. So we do have to go through the process, we do have to do our due diligence, we do have to do our work, but this is a genocide and we need to act,” she said.

The subcommittee held meetings last summer and in 2018 on the human rights situation of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. In recent meetings, the committee heard from more than 20 witnesses and activists over 14 hours on July 20 and July 21. Many urged subcommittee members to recognize that genocide has taken place.

The subcommittee’s unanimous declaration proclaimed it is “important” for the Canadian government to “condemn” the Chinese government’s persecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, “recognize” that the persecution constitutes “genocide and work within legal frameworks of international bodies to recognize that acts being committed against Uyghurs constitute genocide,” and impose Magnitsky sanctions on Chinese government officials “responsible for the perpetration of grave human rights abuses.”

Chinese Ambassador Cong Peiwu cast a warning to Canadian Parliamentarians against recognizing the Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghurs as genocide. The Hill Times photograph by Sam Garcia

The proclamation came less than a week after Chinese Ambassador Cong Peiwu told reporters there would be a “strong reaction” if Parliament recognized the treatment of Uyghurs as a genocide. The Chinese government has consistently denied that genocide is taking place.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe said Parliamentarians need to have “political courage.”

“That means we have to name things. If there wasn’t a genocide, we wouldn’t name it. Because it’s China, we’re not going to name it? I don’t think so,” he said.

He said if genocide was being committed by a smaller, less powerful nation, there would be no apprehension to recognize it.

“There is a genocide. We have proof of it. We [had] two emergency meetings on this [at the subcommittee], hearing from witnesses who have lived this genocide, witnessed this genocide, and been there when there was a genocide,” he said. “We can’t wait [any] more.”

Ms. McPherson said the “bullying” from China shows that Canada needs to work with its international allies.

She said Canada shouldn’t take the threat lightly, but it also can’t let a threat change the way the subcommittee, Parliament, and government operates.

“That would be absurd,” she said. “Let’s be reasonable, let’s not do this alone, let’s not come out swinging by ourselves. Let’s work with our allies.”

“Together that voice is strong enough, I think, that we can bring China back onto the side of international human rights law,” Ms. McPherson said.

Former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson, vice-president and fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said the Chinese would protest if Parliament recognized there is a genocide against Uyghurs.

He said a likely response would be the Chinese government summoning Canadian ambassador Dominic Barton and a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry would also raise the issue. He said there’s also a possibility of economic ramifications.

It would be up to diplomats to explain the “stark differences” between the Canadian and Chinese systems of governance, and the independence of Parliamentarians from the government, said Mr. Robertson.

A parliamentary recognition of genocide can occur either through a motion or by the subcommittee submitting a report to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which, if approved, would be tabled in the House, which would then vote on its concurrence.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe said he thinks the best path is through a motion.

In 2018, the House passed a unanimous motion recognizing the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar as a genocide.

Ms. McPherson said both options are on the table, and said the subcommittee is looking at composing a report to bring to the Foreign Affairs Committee.

It met in camera to discuss committee business on Oct. 27.

Ms. McPherson said in the meantime, the government should act.

“It takes time to get those reports created and to the committee and have the committee to have the time to actually look at them and make some recommendations, so I think it’s important that the Liberals do more now,” she said, adding the government should move forward with “some urgency.”

“We have legal and moral obligations to act when [a genocide] is apparent,” she said.

Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi (Pierrefonds-Dollard, Que.), a member of the subcommittee, told The Hill Times that Parliament is “seized” by the issue.

“We have as a country … a responsibility to protect, which means that we have a responsibility as a country to halt the genocide to our most ability whenever we see it,” he said. “This is, right now, a live conversation within Parliament.”

Mr. Zuberi said he wants to see the recommendations in the subcommittee’s statement be “popularized throughout Canadian society.”

Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne says Canada remains ‘deeply disturbed’ over ‘troubling reports’ of the persecution of Uyghurs. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

“I still feel that there is a relatively low level of awareness around what is unfolding in Xinjiang,” he said.

He added the most important recommendation to come out of the committee’s proclamation is for Canada to work with other nations to have the international community investigate the genocide allegations, as well as for Canada to consider providing asylum to those at risk of being put in concentration camps, to have Canada disentangle itself from products and imports being produced from forced concentration camp labour, and to consider appointing a special envoy to Huseyin Celil—a Canadian citizen with Uyghur origin—who has been detained by Chinese authorities since 2006.

“These recommendations … are recommendations that if highlighted, if implemented, and focused upon, we can actually make real change,” Mr. Zuberi said.

Liberal subcommittee chair Peter Fonseca (Mississauga East-Cooksville, Ont.) noted in an email to The Hill Times that the group works on a consensus basis.

“If there is consensus from the subcommittee members, the subcommittee will produce a report that will have recommendations,” he wrote.

Conservative MP Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan, Alta.), who was a member of the subcommittee in the last parliamentary session, has called for both Parliament and the Canadian government to recognize genocide is being committed against the Uyghurs.

Neither the Liberal nor Conservative House leaders addressed whether there’s been discussion between the parties over a motion on recognizing Uyghur genocide.

Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne (Saint-Maurice-Champlain, Que.) said in a statement that Canada remains “deeply disturbed by the troubling reports of human rights violations in Xinjiang and have publicly and consistently called on the Chinese government to end the repression of Uyghurs.”

Mr. Champagne noted he raised the issue with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet while in Geneva earlier this month.

“Canada along with 37 other countries at the UN expressed its grave concerns regarding the situation in Xinjiang. Canada takes allegations of genocide very seriously. We will continue to work in close collaboration with our allies to push for these to be investigated through an international independent body and for impartial experts to access the region so that they can see the situation firsthand and report back,” he said.

Track Two Discussions China-Canada

      Comments Off on Track Two Discussions China-Canada

CIUA – CPIFA: Fifth Round of Track II Dialogue

22 October 2020

China Institute, University of Alberta (CIUA) – Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs (CPIFA) – Fifth Round of Track II Dialogue

2020cpifa-chinese-delegation.jpg

On October 20, 2020, the 5th round of Canada-China Track II Dialogue was held virtually via video link between Beijing and several cities in Canada.

Previous rounds of the Dialogue have been held in Ottawa, Beijing, Banff and near Chengdu (China).

The China Institute of the University of Alberta was established in 2005 with the support of an endowment granted by the Province of Alberta which matched the appraised value of The Mactaggart Art Collection, donated to the University of Alberta Museums by philanthropists Sandy and Cécile Mactaggart. CPIFA was established in 1949, with Premier Zhou Enlai as its first President.

The Canadian delegation for the 5th round of Canada-China Track II Dialogue was as follows:

Gordon Houlden, Director of the China Institute, at the University of Alberta.
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy, Chair of the World Refugee and Migration Council, former Minister of Employment and Immigration, Western Diversification and former Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Robert Wright, former Canadian Ambassador to P.R. China; Former Deputy Minister of International Trade
Gordon Venner, former Canadian diplomat and ambassador, and former Associate Deputy Minister of National Defence.
Susan Gregson, Former Assistant Deputy Minister for Asia Pacific at Global Affairs Canada, previously served as Deputy High Commissioner in London, Consul General of Canada in Shanghai and Minister-Counsellor at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing.
Ron MacIntosh, Senior Fellow with the China Institute at the University of Alberta, Former Director General, Strategic Planning, Resources and Coordination, Global Affairs Canada and former Canadian diplomat with postings in Japan, Korea, Washington, and as the Executive Director, Canadian Trade Office in Taipei.
Colin Robertson, Vice President and Fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, former Canadian diplomat, served as first Head of the Advocacy Secretariat and Minister at the Canadian Embassy in Washington and Consul General in Los Angeles, with previous assignments as Consul and Counsellor in Hong Kong and in New York at the UN and Consulate General.
Jia Wang, Deputy Director, China Institute, University of Alberta

The Chinese delegation for the 5th round of Canada-China Track II Dialogue was as follows:

WANG Chao, President of the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs.
QIU Yuanping, Standing Committee Member, Vice Chairman of the Commission for Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Overseas Chinese of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)
CHEN Xiaogong, Former Deputy Commander of Chinese Air Force and Former Assistant Chief of the General Staff.
ZHOU Mingwei, President of Translators Association of China, President of China Academy of Translation, and Executive Member of China Public Diplomacy Association.
ZHAO Weiping, Vice President of Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs
ZHANG Junsai, Former Chinese Ambassador to Canada.
JIANG Shan, Former Minister Counsellor (Commercial) at the Chinese Embassy in Canada.

2020cpifa-cpw.png
2020cpifa-db.png

The dialogue also benefited from the perspectives of China’s Ambassador to Canada H.E. Cong Peiwu and Canada’s Ambassador to China H.E. Dominic Barton, who both delivered remarks as guest speakers.

The dialogue covered the following main topics:

  • What have been the strengths of the Canada-China interactions that have sustained the relationship for half a century, despite differences in culture, political systems and economies?
  • What are the challenges that have prevented the Canada-China relations from reaching their full potential?
  • How can the current problems that limit the diplomatic relationship be tackled?
  • Can Canada and China find ways to promote multinational solutions to trade, environmental and international issues?
  • Will deteriorating Sino-American relations constrain the rehabilitation of Canada-China relations?

Travel restrictions permitting, it is expected that the 6th round of Canada-China Track II Dialogue will be held in Canada in 2021.

2020cpifa001.jpeg

Two Michaels and China

      Comments Off on Two Michaels and China

Finally, a consular visit to Canadians imprisoned by China

By Marc Montgomery | 
english@rcinet.ca
Posted: Tuesday, October 13, 2020 10:04

After months of detention with no contact with Canadian authorities, China finally allowed a virtual consular contact with two detained Canadians. Former diplomat Michael Kovrig, and consultant Michael Spavor have been in Chinese prisons since December 2018.

Their arrest and detention in what has been labelled as harsh conditions, came almost immediately after Huawei top executive Meng Wanzhou was detained in Canada on a U.S. extradition requests.  She faces bank fraud charges there related to U.S. sanctions against Iran.

The detention and later charges of espionage against the two Michaels have been called ‘arbitrary’ by Canadian authorities and is widely seen as retaliation for Meng’s detention under a form of house arrest at her two Vancouver mansions.

Since January and the outbreak of the pandemic in China, authorities there have prevented Canadian contact with the two Michaels using the excuse of fear of spreading the virus. Up till this Friday even virtual contact had not been allowed. This is in contravention of a 1999 Canada-China consular agreement, as well as international law Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

Reports are that the men were greatly relieved to finally get news from the outside world.

Consular visits of nationals detained in foreign countries are to assess their condition, seek acces to medical care if necessary, provide advice, clarify the nature of the detention, and be a link for detainee and family to communicate.

Lately, Canadian officials past and present have been speaking out more loudly against the detentions and access refusal.   Canada’s Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan last week in an onliine panel referred to China’s action as “hostage diplomacy”.

Quoted by the CBC on Friday, former Canadian ambassador to China, David Mulroney said. “There was absolutely no reason that virtual access couldn’t have been offered by China even during the height of the pandemic, and no justification for denying in-person visits after China emerged from lockdown during the summer. This is simply more cruel treatment by China, with the expectation that we will be grateful even for even a half-hearted effort on their part. We shouldn’t fall into that trap.”

Canadian Ambassador to the U.N., Bob Rae responded to a Chinese comment at a General Assembly last week that Canada was bullying China. Rae gave a severe rebuke saying Canada would never forget China’s harsh treatment of the two Canadians, saying it was something “we will never forget’, then adding. “If you think that insulting us or insulting my country or insulting anyone is going to help in resolving the situation, you’re sadly mistaken”.

Canadian U.N. ambassador rebukes China

Former Canadian diplomat to Hong Kong, Colin Robertson in an email said the harsh words ma have had an effect in China relenting to allow he virtual consular visits last Friday and Saturday.

Colin Robertson, now with the Global Affairs Institute, is a former Canadian diplomat to China and to the U.N. (suppliled)

He wrote, “It appears that the Chinese government ceasing to withhold counselor access to Michael Kobrig and Michael Spavor is directly connected to the strong statement that Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bon Rae, made in the General Assembly a couple of days before
This does suggest that the Chinese regime does respond positively to Canada kicking back more assertively against China’s gross violations of the norms of international diplomacy and trade. It should embolden Canada to do the right thing and provide safe harbor to those in Hong Kong currently under risk of political persecution due to the National Security Law and to sanction Chinese officials under Canada’s Justice for Victims of Foreign Corrupt Officials Act, our Magnitsky list, for their genocidal actions against Turkic Muslims in Northwest China”.

Conservative opposition Member of Parliament and foreign affairs critic Michael Chong sad te consular visit should have happened much sooner adding the COVID excuse “doesn’t hold water”. Quoted in The Canadian Press, he added that China has largely reopened and in-person visits should have happened long ago. He added that the Liberal government seemed to be reacting to the continued pressure of the Conservatives to take a harder stance against China on the issue

Margaret  McCuaig-Johnston Senior Fellow, Institute of Science, Society and Policy, University of Ottawa, and Senior Fellow China Institute, University of Alberta, is a recognized expert on Canada-China relations. In an email to RCI on the two Michael’s imprisonment she noted that China has claimed the coronavirus problem is over and “there is absolutely no reason why they cannot be given in person visits as is their right”.

Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a Mandarin speaker and respected analyst of Canada-Chinese affairs, is among those saying it’s time for Canada to get tough with China ( University of Ottawa)

She has been among many experts and former official who’ve been advocating for a tougher stance by Canada, calling the arrests of the Canadians a “kidnapping”. In response to some opinions that Canada could resolve the situation by sending Meng Wanzhou home she added, “We all want our citizens returned to us. But that doesn’t mean we should sell our soul and kowtow as low as possible by sending Ms Meng home – that would just teach China to take more hostages whenever it wants a country to fall into line on anything. China needs to see consequences for its outrageous actions against Canada, which has been a friend of China for 50 years. We should continue to work with others countries to call out China on its actions”.

She further added, ” We should impose Magnitsky sanctions against officials, not only for what they have done in Hong Kong and Xinjiang but in the first instance for the kidnapping of our Canadians. We should send home the Chinese athletes training for the 2022 Olympics in China.  The boycott of the Olympics being discussed would hurt our athletes and help China win more medals, but our gesture of friendship to train Chinese athletes is no longer appropriate.

Noting also the issue of 5G wireless technology and trade, she said, “We should ban Huawei, and work with other like-minded countries on alternatives to Chinese telecom technology (UK proposal – D-10, US proposal – Tech-10).  We should diversify away from China to other countries in the Indo-Pacific, so our companies are not at such risk of losing their trade and investments suddenly as happened to our agriculture sector — And we should diversify not just for trade & inv’t reasons but also population health, education, science and technology & security.”

At least three recent polls have shown at least three-quarters of Canadians now have an unfavourable view of China.

A document prepared by Canada’s Global Affairs department in October 2019, warned the then incoming Foreign Affairs minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, that “while Canada has long framed its China policy through the lens of economic opportunity, it now needs to take account of Beijing’s long-term strategic challenge to Canada’s interests and values.”

The papers  released to a committee which had been opposed by the Trudeau Liberals also said, “As the PRC [People’s Republic of China] continues to bolster its assertive foreign policy demeanor, Canada must promote and defend its values in close partnership with like-minded allies and coalitions. The crisis has demonstrated Beijing’s readiness and ability to use aggressive economic and political levers to punish Canada (a pattern observed in China’s other bilateral relationships), and to propagate norms of international relations inimical to Canada’s interests”.

Previous meetings by Foreign Minister Champagne with Chinese counterparts had led to no real movement on the issues. Recently, officials have been working with the U.s to get more support on the issue. In a phone call on Sat, Prime Minister Trudeau thanked U.S President Trump for his “ongoing support” in the effort to secure release of the two Michaels.

additional information- sources

US Election

      Comments Off on US Election

Canada games out scenarios for U.S. election, frets over potential disruption

Reuters Thursday October 08, 2020 16:36
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada’s foreign ministry is gaming out scenarios for the U.S. election and what the implications could be, especially if the aftermath is unpredictable, five sources familiar with the matter said.Ottawa is talking to other members of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations who are working on similar initiatives that plan out responses to various election outcomes, one source said.

The sources said officials were looking at scenarios ranging from a straightforward win by either Republican President Donald Trump or Democratic opponent Joe Biden to more complicated outcomes where the result is contested or delayed.

Insiders cite concern in Ottawa about the potential for economic disruption to highly integrated supply chains, especially for the auto industry. Canada is particularly vulnerable, given that 75% of its goods and services exports go to the United States.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office declined to comment on the scenarios.

Canada’s ambassador in Washington, Kirsten Hillman, is playing a central role, said the sources, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation and declined to give precise details as to what they were looking at. Hillman’s office declined an interview request.

Trudeau said Canada was looking at political polarization in the United States with some concern.

“We’re all watching the U.S. election with close attention because of its potential impact on the Canadian economy and on Canadians,” he told reporters on Thursday.

“If it (the result) is less clear there may be some disruptions and we need to be ready for any outcomes,” he said.

Canadian officials are also looking at what happened in the disputed 2000 U.S. election, which took five weeks to resolve in favor of George Bush. Despite the tensions, there was no political violence.

But Trump has questioned the integrity of the electoral system many times, prompting apprehension about what his supporters might do in case of a contested or unclear result. That said, Canadian officials are not looking at extreme scenarios.

“I doubt anyone seriously would consider a flood of people making a mad dash to the border no matter how bad it gets,” said one person familiar with the discussions inside Ottawa.

Colin Robertson, a former Canadian diplomat with several U.S. postings, said contacts at the foreign ministry told him they had already sent a memo on the matter to members of Trudeau’s team.

“There has been some concern from the prime minister’s office about ‘What if things went very badly, what might we do?’,” said Robertson, who is also vice president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

Robertson said he had been told the concern was largely from people who had not served in the United States and therefore had a less deep understanding of U.S. institutions.

In public, Canadian officials are taking a neutral tone.

Trudeau, who has clashed with Trump in the past, said last week that Canada was respectful of events south of the border.

“We will not be interfering or engaging in any way in their electoral processes and that includes commenting on their electoral processes,” he told reporters.

Trudeau’s team was left scrambling in 2016, as no one had predicted a Trump victory, and it rushed to respond to the implications the day after the election, according to two people directly familiar with the matter.

University of Ottawa international affairs professor Roland Paris, Trudeau’s first foreign policy advisor, said Ottawa was right to stay out of U.S. politics.

“Trump has a clear track record of retaliating vindictively against anyone who says things that he doesn’t like,” he said.

Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Aurora Ellis

Belarus and Sanctions

      Comments Off on Belarus and Sanctions

Why the experts think Belarus isn’t going to be Putin’s next Ukraine

Targeted sanctions ‘hit them where it hurts,’ says former diplomat

Murray Brewster · CBC News · 
Demonstrators — one of them wearing an old Belarusian national flag and holding a cardboard sword reading “solidarity” — march during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus on Sept. 27, 2020. Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians have been protesting daily since the Aug. 9 presidential election. (TUT.by/The Associated Press)

If there is a glimmer of a silver lining for Canada, the U.K. and its allies as they watch the brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters in Belarus, it’s this: Russia probably doesn’t want another Ukraine — and it certainly can’t afford one.

The imposition of sanctions by both countries Tuesday against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, his son and six other Belarusian government officials in the wake of a disputed presidential election was the outcome of a delicate diplomatic dance that took weeks — even though some European nations chose to remain wallflowers.

Former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson said the Magnitsky-style sanctions would have had more punch if they’d been part of a wider multinational effort.

“In the case of Belarus, we have gone after the kingpins and we hit them where it hurts — their pocketbooks and ability to travel,” he said. “It would have been better if it were a G7 rather than just Canada and the U.K., but I guess it’s a reflection of EU solidarity.”

Some experts, meanwhile, say they think there’s a better-than-even chance that — although they’re not aimed at Russia — the economic penalties will prompt dialogue and lead to de-escalation.

“The Russians don’t want another Ukraine,” said Andrew Rasiulis, a former senior Canadian defence official now with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. “They don’t want another problem on their border.”

Police detain a demonstrator during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2020. (Associated Press)

While surface comparisons can be made between the situation in Belarus now and the six-year-old war in Ukraine, the geopolitical and economic landscapes are different, said Rasiulis, who once ran the Directorate of Nuclear and Arms Control Policy at the Department of National Defence.

Unlike the Ukrainians who took part in the anti-government, post-election protests in Kyiv that preceded the Russian invasion and annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in 2014, those demonstrating in Minsk are not demanding closer association with the West or using much anti-Russian rhetoric. Belarusians are, primarily, rising up to demand good government.

And Moscow is in a weaker economic position now than it was in 2014 — in part because of the punishing sanctions imposed after its seizure of Crimea and armed intervention in eastern Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Dec. 20, 2019 in St. Petersburg, Russia. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

For Belarus, getting hit by international sanctions following a presidential election is almost a regular thing.

In 2006, in reply to a heavy-handed response to protests, the U.S. and European Union levelled sanctions on dozens of Belarusian individuals and state-run companies. The EU eased up in 2016 when Lukashenko released political prisoners, but Washington has maintained an array of restrictions on Belarusian officials, including the president himself.

Penalizing the powerful

Robertson said the West has learned the hard way that targeted punishments, such as those imposed on Tuesday, will be more effective in the long run.

Experts at the U.S.-based RAND Corporation and elsewhere have warned repeatedly over the past decade that targeting key Belarusian state-owned enterprises (such as chemical and petrochemical industries) and restricting the flow of capital would cause higher economic damage to the country as a whole and hurt many ordinary citizens.

The chances of political concessions appear to be higher when you hit the business elite and the cronies, says one recent study by the think-tank.

That report, which looked at Russia’s influence in Eastern Europe and ways to contain it, said efforts to promote a more liberal Belarus were unlikely to succeed and could provoke a strong response from Moscow.

Convincing the Kremlin

William Courtney and Michael Haltzel, two noted U.S. experts on Eastern Europe, argued in a RAND Corporation blog post last month that western countries should support mediation and calls for a new presidential election with credible international monitoring.

Russia, they said, is the key — and Moscow could be enticed to go along.

“A more democratic, Eastern Slavic state on Russia’s border might be difficult for the Kremlin to accept, but the European Union and the United States could make clear that any improvement in relations with Moscow would depend on it not intervening coercively in Belarus,” wrote Courtney, a former ambassador, and Haltzel, a former policy adviser to U.S. Senator (now Democratic presidential nominee) Joe Biden.

Canada, Latvia and other western nations have called for mediation, said Rasiulis — who is convinced Moscow is more interested in keeping Belarus in its orbit than in Lukashenko’s political survival.

The Institute for the Study of War, another prominent U.S. think-tank, has warned that some of the Russian army units which took part in a recent joint military exercise may not have returned home from Belarus last week as planned.

Rasiulis said that while it’s clear Russian is keeping the option of force on table, he has a hard time believing Moscow would launch a violent crackdown because of how it would alienate the people of Belarus.

China Canada Parliamentary Committee

      Comments Off on China Canada Parliamentary Committee

Parliament should bring back the Canada-China special committee

COLIN ROBERTSON  THE GLOBE AND MAIL

00:00

When the new session begins, Parliamentarians will focus on COVID recovery, but they also need to pay attention to our critical relationship with China. MPs should re-establish the special committee on Canada-China relations that was created in the last session. We need continuing parliamentary oversight of this vital, complex and challenging relationship.

Created last December on a Conservative motion with Bloc Québécois, NDP and Green support, the committee held 12 meetings and the testimony of their 48 witnesses was informative.

The Deputy Minister of Global Affairs Canada, Marta Morgan, affirmed that Canada’s “absolute priority” with China is freeing Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, detained since December, 2018, and securing clemency for Robert Schellenberg. A thousand diplomatic meetings later, the U.S. has been the most supportive. But only 13 other friends and allies have voiced public support. Where are the others? Mr. Kovrig’s wife, Vina Nadjibulla, is right when she says that “words are no longer enough.”

Our China policy, said Ms. Morgan, is one of “comprehensive engagement.” But since December, 2018, only International Trade Minister Mary Ng has visited China. Now Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne acknowledges there is no prospect of freer trade.

Our current policy is neither comprehensive nor engaged. Parliament needs to weigh in. A special committee will help keep focus on our China relationship and, hopefully, come up with a strategy enjoying broad party support.

Witnesses in the last session came mostly from the civil service, scholarly and human rights communities. We need to hear from the business community as we rethink trade and investment. What do security experts think about disinformation, “wolf warriors” and Chinese military activity? And what about Hong Kong, home to at least 300,000 Canadians? Have we done an analysis of the new national security law? What can we do to reinforce “one country, two systems”?

Our allies are re-examining their China relationships. Despite its hawkish title – Communist China and the Free World’s Future – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently laid out a policy based on reciprocity and transparency that also called for collective action by democracies.

Like Canada, the Australians are enduring Chinese “coercive diplomacy”: hostages, trade sanctions, subversion and cyberintrusions. Their government and public policy institutions are looking at everything from technology to the subversive activities of Chinese networks. Australia led the Five Eyes intelligence partners in banning Huawei and ZTE from their 5G networks. Both Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Foreign Minister Marise Payne have called out Chinese disinformation and cyberintrusions.

A 2019 British Foreign Affairs committee report has trenchant recommendations on China’s Belt and Road initiative; freedom of navigation in the South China Sea; and Chinese interference in U.K. affairs. Former British diplomat Charles Parton’s perceptive report for The Policy Institute describes the dilemma facing Western policy-makers: how both to co-operate with and to resist an authoritarian power with great economic and rising technological power. For Mr. Parton it comes down to four words: “Understand, Prepare, Resource, Unite.” The like-minded democracies, he argues, must act in concert. Former Australian diplomat Peter Varghese advocates an “engage and constrain” strategy to create a new equilibrium in the Indo-Pacific. Scholar-diplomat Christopher Bishop looks at case studies, including Chinese detention of the Garratts, and suggests negotiations with China will be long and difficult.

We need a China policy based on realism, one that is neither complacent nor paranoid. China is our second-largest trading partner. It is our second-largest source of foreign students. Nearly two million Canadians claim Chinese descent. A systemic examination of the relationship involving independent research will complement the work of Parliamentarians.

With freer trade now ditched and “comprehensive engagement” a joke, Mr. Champagne needs to speak on the China relationship. We need the same blunt language that then-foreign minister Chrystia Freeland employed when she addressed Parliamentarians on Canada’s foreign policy priorities in June, 2017.

Parliamentary committees get little attention but they are work horses of good government. In gathering information from ministers, civil servants, experts and stakeholders, committee hearings provide a vital public education role. Even with the inevitable venting and pontificating, their scrutiny results in better legislation and insightful reports.

When Parliament resumes, it should quickly reinstitute the special committee on Canada-China relations. And then as the late Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong observed, “let a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend.”

Throne Speech and Foreign Policy

      Comments Off on Throne Speech and Foreign Policy

Foreign policy focus in new session should be on China, U.S., and human rights, say Parliamentarians

By NEIL MOSS      SEPTEMBER 23, 2020
‘The No. 1 [foreign policy] priority is our relationship with the United States,’ says Independent Senator Peter Boehm as the U.S. presidential election quickly approaches.
f Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

As Parliament returns for another session, MPs and Senators say they want to see a foreign policy focus on Canada’s fraught relationship with China, the ever-important relationship with the U.S., and the declining human rights situation around the world.

“It is time for Canada to assume—or reassume—its leadership role in the world,” said Liberal MP Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, B.C.), who served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the last parliamentary session.

She said more has to be done to fight authoritarianism around the world and protect human rights, including by strengthening multilateral institutions.

“You are seeing what is happening with Belarus. You are seeing what is happening with Hong Kong. You’ve seen what is happening in other parts of the world. And Canada needs to do more, I think, than saying, ‘Oh, that’s terrible. We don’t agree with it.’ We need to actually be looking at what steps we can take with other countries to put an end to it and to ensure that human rights and safety of those who are victims now of the kind of new world changes that are occurring,” Ms. Fry said.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee could bring together experts and analyze how Canada can meet the global challenges, she said.

“We need to show that we don’t just talk the talk, but we walk the walk,” she said. “This is urgent. We’re talking about urgency right now. You just have to look around the world and see what’s going on.”

Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne (Saint-Maurice-Champlain, Que.) has condemned human rights violations in Belarus, as well as the poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny. Canada is working with members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to investigate human rights violations in Belarus.

Ms. Fry said more has to be done to protect those being subject to human rights abuses while migrating throughout the world.

“We need to stop looking at ourselves and our vested self interest, because our vested self interest lies in the global self interest.”

Former Canadian ambassador Gilles Rivard, president of the Retired Heads of Mission Association, said Canada needs to take care of multilateral institutions.

“We are in quite a dramatic period,” said Mr. Rivard, who served as Canada’s deputy permanent representative at the UN from 2010 to 2013. “We seem to forget that we have these multilateral institutions because everyone is looking into their own courts to fix the solution.”

He said Canada needs to rebuild its “credibility and leadership” in strengthening multilateral organizations, Mr. Rivard said, especially if it wants to win a seat on the UN Security Council in the future.

Restarting the Canada-China Relations Committee

NDP MP Jack Harris (St. John’s East, N.L.), his party’s foreign policy critic, said his top priority is on restarting the Special House Committee on Canada-China Relations.

“We need the Canada-China Committee to be reinstated as a special committee and able to carry on its work, and include the evidence that has already been heard,” said Mr. Harris, adding that the committee has to be able to meet virtually.

Mr. Harris said the Canadian government should be open to receiving migrants from Hong Kong and broaden family reunification. He also said Canada needs to work with other countries to put pressure on China through Magnitsky sanctions.

Former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson, vice-president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said Ottawa needs a new policy on China that both the Liberals and Conservatives can get behind. He said it should be based on “realism,” and avoid “paranoia or complacency.” He added that it is his hope to see the Canada-China Committee restarted.

Former Canadian ambassador Jeremy Kinsman, who served as Canada’s envoy to Russia, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, said while Canada does not want a new Cold War with China, it needs to be communicating with concerned partners “about how to ensure China and others play by universally agreed rules.”

Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole (Durham, Ont.) has taken a tougher stance on China, which includes pitching a divestment from the Chinese economy and pushing to expel Chinese officials who “intimidate Canadians.”

New Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong (Wellington-Halton Hills, Ont.) wasn’t available for an interview last week.

Before the prorogation of Parliament, the House Subcommittee on International Human Rights heard testimony about China’s Uyghur minority, a large part of which has been incarcerated by the Chinese government. The committee was set to release a statement on the testimony it heard when Parliament was prorogued.

At the time, Conservative MP Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan, Alta), his party’s human rights critic, said the subcommittee heard “clear-cut” evidence of genocide taking place.

NDP MP Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, Alta.), her party’s representative on the subcommittee, said it is “pretty universally agreed upon” that more needs to be done.

Activists and human rights experts encouraged Parliament to recognize the persecution of the Uyghurs by Chinese authorities as a genocide.

Canada-U.S. relationship remains No. 1 priority: Sen. Boehm

As the U.S. presidential election approaches on Nov. 3, Canada’s relationship with the United States will still be of central concern, despite the removal of U.S. national security tariffs on Canada aluminum exports and the new North American trade pact being in force, said Independent Senator Peter Boehm (Ontario), a former career diplomat.

“The No. 1 [foreign policy] priority is our relationship with the United States—it’s always our No. 1 priority—but as we get closer to the U.S. election, there will be the to and fro of the campaign and how we figure in that,” he said.

The top issues between the two countries will be the Canada-U.S. border and everything related to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the Canadian and American economies, he said, and the movement of goods and services across the border.

“The government is going to have to watch that very closely, and as committees are struck and reconstituted this will be a subject of some analysis, I would expect,” Sen. Boehm said.

If the Nov. 3 election produces a new administration, Sen. Boehm said the two countries will continue to have disputes over international trade.

Mr. Rivard echoed Sen. Boehm, agreeing that the Canada-U.S. relationship is the most important priority.

“There are so many issues that [the relationship] has be our [first] priority,” he said, noting the economy, the pandemic, and the border as examples.