I just met with Prime Minister @JustinTrudeau – my first bilateral meeting as president. Tune in as we discuss the meeting and how we’ll tackle the shared challenges we face. https://t.co/0vASM6lIKb
— President Biden (@POTUS) February 23, 2021
Canadian Prime Minister (PM) Trudeau held his first meeting with United States (US) President Joe Biden today. Trudeau was joined by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau, while Biden was accompanied by Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
Prior to the meeting, the White House released a “Fact Sheet” on the partnership between the two countries, saying that they “share a unique bond” as “friends, neighbours, NATO allies, and partners”. This friendship, it said, is a driving force behind the pair’s $2 billion cross-border trade.
More significantly, the White House announced a six-point US-Canada Partnership Roadmap that will facilitate cooperation on: the pandemic, climate change, economic recovery, diversity and inclusion, security and defence, and building international alliances.
On security, the pair said they would honour their commitment to the 2014 Wales Defence Investment Pledge between NATO members, under which they agreed to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defence, and 20% of that 2% on new equipment. Likewise, they also agreed to ‘re-establish’ the Cross-Border Crime Forum. Similarly, on multilateralism, the White House said that he US would look to collaborate with Canada through the United Nations (UN), the G7 and the G20, the World Trade Organization (WTO), NATO, and the Five Eyes community.
Just logged on to meet with @POTUS @JoeBiden. We’re going to focus on strengthening the partnership between our two countries and putting that bond to work to make life better for families, workers, and small business owners on both sides of the border - stay tuned for more. pic.twitter.com/3kPUYYPvvz
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) February 23, 2021
The Canadian PM’s office released a similar statement before the meeting, saying that the pair would focus on “economic recovery, growing the middle class and creating jobs, maintaining strong supply chains, climate change, our bilateral energy relationship, defence and security, and promoting diversity and inclusion”. In fact, Trudeau said that the two countries “share one of the strongest and deepest friendships between any two countries in the world”.
To cement this point, his office’s statement included a number of facts on the bilateral relationship. For example, Canada buys more goods from the US than China, Japan, and the United Kingdom (UK) combined. In addition, Canadian companies employ 725,000 Americans and Canada is the US’ biggest energy supplier.
During their meeting, Trudeau thanked Biden for “stepping up in such a big way on tackling climate change” by rejoining the Paris Climate Accords and for renewing the US’ commitment to multilateral institutions, saying that “US leadership has been sorely missed over the past years”.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau thanks Pres. Biden for "stepping up in such a big way on tackling climate change."
— ABC News (@ABC) February 23, 2021
"U.S. leadership has been sorely missed over the past years." https://t.co/XAMmv3BMJy pic.twitter.com/sAynNOEd1M
Trudeau also made a thinly veiled swipe at Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, when he said, “As we are preparing the joint rollout and communique from this (summit), it’s nice when the Americans are not pulling out all references to climate change and instead adding them in.”
Likewise, Biden said, “The United States has no closer friend, no closer friend than Canada.”
Meanwhile, VP Harris said, “We are neighbors. We are friends, as a country. And the challenges that we face, not only are -- as we've said about COVID and climate change -- also as the president will talk about and has mentioned, our challenges in terms of China and Russia, and what we can do in terms of working together on that and working together in term of strengthening and modernizing the U.N. and WTO.”
Harris was also congratulated by Canadian Deputy PM Freeland for becoming the first female VP. Freeland said, “Your election has been such an inspiration for women and girls across Canada.”
Biden called on Trudeau to join him in promoting democratic norms ideals across the world, saying, “As the leaders of the major democracies, we have a responsibility to prove that democracy can still deliver for our people. There are a lot of leaders around the world who are trying to make the argument autocracy works better.”
Following the meeting, the two leaders delivered speeches on what they discussed.
Joe Biden vowed to collaborate with Canada to drive economic recovery from the pandemic, as well as focus on climate change now that the US has rejoined the Paris Climate Accords. Both countries committed to targeting net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
On an international front, Biden said that the two leaders spoke about bolstering transatlantic security by “modernising” the bilateral North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and “expanding” dialogue on the Arctic. The US President also reiterated the country’s renewed commitment to multilateralism, saying that, in rejoining the World Health Organization (WHO), the US will look to prevent “future biological threats” to avoid another catastrophe like the current pandemic.
Next, he called on China to release Canadian citizens Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, who have been arbitrarily detained in China since 2018 as an act of retribution against Canada’s decision to detain Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou on a US extradition warrant.
To this end, he said that the US and Canada, whom he described as the “closest of friends”, “stand together against the abuse of universal rights and democratic freedoms” and will look to strengthen their commitment to providing “safe haven” to refugees.
Trudeau began his speech by extending his best wishes and his assistance to Texas, which is experiencing widespread power outages due to winter storms. Like Biden, the Canadian leader also hailed the “extraordinary friendship” of the two countries, and said that the pair must leverage this relationship to empower local businesses, focus on climate change, tackle radical extremism, protect poorer and developing nations, and strengthen multilateral institutions. He also thanked Biden for his comments on the two Canadians arbitrarily detained in China.
He ended his speech by saying that the US and Canada are each other’s “closet allies, most important trading partners, and oldest friends”.