Trudeau

Prime Minister Trudeau to talk Canada-U.S. relations at U of T

ullahnor — Tue, 20 Jun 2017 17:54:31 +0000

Prime Minister Trudeau to talk Canada-U.S. relations at U of T

ullahnor Tue, 06/20/2017 - 13:54

Cutline

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to talk about his relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, along with policy issues like climate change, trade and Canada's role in the world (photo by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Author legacy

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Topic

Global Lens

Rotman School of Management

Global

Trump

International

Trudeau

Subheadline

In conversation with The New York Times

The future of NAFTA, a U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate pact, Canada’s emerging leadership role on the world stage – that's the backdrop for a conversation with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau taking place at U of T this week.

Is it any wonder that tickets for the event, co-organized by the Martin Prosperity Institute and The New York Times, sold out in just six hours?

“We’re in a unique time with [Foreign Minister] Chrystia Freeland’s recent speech in the House of Commons about Canada’s changing role and position in geo-politics,” said Jamison Steeve, executive director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at U of T's Rotman School of Management. “My hope is that we get a clear articulation from the prime minister of how he sees that role.”

The institute, a think tank that focuses on the future of democratic capitalism, is led by such internationally recognized leaders as Roger Martin and cities expert Richard Florida. The institute teamed up with the New York Times to host the June 22 event, titled Trade in the Balance: Canada-U.S. Relations. While Thursday's event is sold out, a live broadcast will be available from 12:45 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Chief White House Correspondent Peter Baker and Canada Bureau Chief Catherine Porter of the New York Times will be posing the questions and steering the discussion.

What can the audience expect?

Historian Robert Bothwell, a professor of international relations at the Munk School of Global Affairs, says Trudeau is in a delicate position: he can't succumb to provocations from U.S. President Donald Trump or to demands from Canadians to say something negative about the American leader.

“Poor Justin,” says Bothwell. “Obviously, Canada has been trying to have a rational response to an irrational phenomenon. Canadian-American relations in that sense are really not very good because they're not predictable. If the single most important person in the relationship seems to go off like a firecracker every morning at six, then what can we really do? In that sense, Justin's overall approach is admirable. It's difficult but admirable.”

Still, Bothwell says, it will be interesting on Thursday to watch Trudeau “pretzel himself” on the status of NAFTA and trade negotiations with the U.S.

“It's pretty clear the U.S. is going to want some visible concessions from Canada and Mexico to justify the hoo-ha that they've made about NAFTA,” Bothwell said. “They have to be seen to win.

“The U.S. hasn't had a complicated negotiation with anybody since Trump has become president. It's conceivable that negotiations could go on and on and on, with no immediate change in policy or status of trilateral trade. We don't really know how things will go.”

Political scientist Carla Norrlof, an associate professor at U of T Scarborough, expects Trudeau will emphasize the importance of NAFTA and the importance of the U.S.-Canada relationship.

“Given the U.S. trade surplus with Canada, and the president's mercantilist approach to trade, Trudeau knows he has a strong hand,” Norrlof says. “Trump may be an unpredictable blow-hard, but if NAFTA falls apart, the U.S. has an interest in negotiating a bilateral trade deal with Canada.”

On climate change, Norrlof foresees Trudeau will somewhat “soften his criticism of the U.S.” by underlining alternative paths to climate action and welcoming the progress the U.S. has made in developing clean energy fuels and technologies.

Freeland's speech on June 6 is also generating interest in the event.

Bothwell says he wants to hear what the prime minister has to say, especially with the growing rift between Europe and Trump.

“Trudeau and his cabinet have gone further than I imagined they would,” Bothwell said. “Chrystia Freeland’s foreign policy speech was really one of the best speeches that any foreign minister has given in the last generation. It really is a principled outline of Canada’s position and Canada’s objectives in foreign policy. What she said about the nature of American politics, and what we must expect and deal with in terms of the United States, I couldn't agree with it more.

“I’m hoping that Trudeau is going to follow that or take the same kind of tone.”

The event is part of a “burgeoning partnership” for the Martin Prosperity Institute with the New York Times, Steeve says. They collaborated on a similar event surrounding Canada’s response to the Syrian refugee crisis and private sponsorship of refugees back in May.

The shove, the comments: U of T experts analyze Trump's first NATO and G7 summits

ullahnor — Fri, 26 May 2017 20:56:41 +0000

The shove, the comments: U of T experts analyze Trump's first NATO and G7 summits

ullahnor Fri, 05/26/2017 - 16:56

Cutline

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump at the G7 Taormina summit in Italy (photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Author legacy

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Topic

Global Lens

Donald Trump

Politics

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Trudeau

Faculty of Arts & Science

Political Science

U of T Mississauga

U.S. President Donald Trump is attending his first NATO and G7 summits – and attracting attention for everything from pushing aside the prime minister of Montenegro to accusing NATO members of not paying their dues.

With Trump apparently reluctant to compromise with European leaders over climate change, trade and migration, the European council president said today that this could be the most challenging G7 summit in years.

U of T's Robert Bothwell, a professor of Canadian history and international relations, says there is the slight possibility that Trump may decide to walk out...or not return next year.

U of T News spoke with Bothwell and Aurel Braun, professor of international relations and political science, about Trump and “the elephant in the room,” Russia.

Robert Bothwell, professor of Canadian history and international relations in the Faculty of Arts & Science and the Munk School of Global Affairs:

How does Trudeau need to position Canada on major issues at the summits?

Our positions are well known, and they conform closely to Trudeau’s election promises so they are politically very important. The obvious ones are climate/environment and trade.

In both cases our positions are close to five of the seven. We cannot give way on climate change, even if we reduce the motivation to purely local political advantage. Trudeau’s party and voters would not stand for it. The U.K. has a very doubtful climate/environment record, though Theresa May would probably pretend the contrary.

As for the U.S., well, who knows? It may depend on what Trump had for dinner last night. He may respond to political pressures. It is doubtful if he will respond to reason or evidence. We are also strongly committed to liberalizing trade, and we will have a lot to say to the Europeans and the Japanese on these issues. The British may wish to be pleasant because they want very much to get a trade deal with Canada (and the U.S.) to replace the EU.

What can we expect from Trump at G7?

We’ve already seen one photographed disaster in Brussels, pushing aside a prime minister and then standing in front of the assembled group staring belligerently, gut advanced, like the bull statue on Wall Street. It’s an image that will adhere to Trump, and that will define, or confirm, what people think of him.

Some U.S. presidents have been very heavily scripted at summits – Ronald Reagan being the most obvious, indeed the outstanding example. But he was happy to stick to the script and the other conferees were happy to let him do it. Reagan deferred to the informed and usually intelligent views of his entourage. Trump? Who knows? He is much more ignorant than Reagan, but the difference is that Reagan knew it, and as a good actor, behaved accordingly – modest, friendly and cooperative. Not so Trump. With scandal breathing down his neck in Washington, and everybody at the summit probably watching CNN, I think things would be rather dicey as he tries to figure out why his trip abroad has not rescued him from the mess at home. This may stimulate his instincts to Twitter with no good outcome for the rest of the world.

There is also the possibility, slight in my opinion but not nonexistent, that Trump might decide to walk out to please his base at home, and there is always the possibility that he would not come to the next summit.

Trudeau's relationship with Trump, and any talks on NAFTA?

There will certainly be some common chat among the leaders – probably a lot of it, as long as Trump isn’t in the group – about the nature of Trump. We certainly have put a lot of time & effort in to studying the phenomenon, so I would think our opinion would be worth having.

My guess is that Trump will have little time for Trudeau at the G7, so direct pressure is not too likely.

Aurel Braun, a professor of international relations and political science at U of T Mississauga, is working on a new book, Russia, the West and Arctic Security:

What are major issues on the table for NATO?

The first issue has been burden sharing. This is a long-time emerging concern that there wasn’t fair sharing in military spending. At the Wales summit at 2014, the member states agreed that all countries in NATO would spend at least 2 per cent of their GDP on defence, and that they meet that requirement by 2024. The problem that has been frustrating Americans and the Trump administration has been especially vociferous is that the vast majority of NATO states haven’t met that commitment. They haven’t even come close to the 2 per cent minimum.

One of the countries happens to be Canada. We need to consider this is not merely in terms of an obligation toward NATO, but we have an even higher concern, and that is in protecting our sovereignty. We have not done what we should do in terms of protecting our sovereignty in the North, in the Arctic. There has been a massive Russian buildup. With global warming, there may be new opportunities for exploration and navigation. All of that affects Canadian sovereignty. It affects the environment. It affects our interests. So, independent of any pressure we may feel from NATO, we simply have not spent on defence what would be required to have adequate protection for our sovereignty.

And what about Russia and Trump’s address to NATO? He lectured NATO on Thursday about not spending enough for collective defence.

Even though Russia is not in the room, it is nonetheless the elephant in the room.

Trump did address Russia in a surprising way to some. The perception is that he’s Russia’s man. That he basically just wants to have good relations with Russia, that he does not want to provoke Russia and that he favours Russian interests. But this is not how he spoke at the NATO meeting because he said very clearly that NATO needs to protect itself against threats from the East, including Russia.

I’m not here as an advocate for Mr. Trump. He is a very flawed president. But he has said he wishes to tremendously increase American energy production and exports. That means that will be a lot more energy on the market, depressing energy prices. Russia is extremely dependent on energy. Low energy prices have been more damaging to the Russian economy than any sanctions that have been passed. He has also talked about increasing the military budget by $54 billion, which is a fairly large sum of money on an already huge defence budget so the Russians are extremely concerned about that.

Trudeau meets Trump: U of T experts on what's at stake for Canada

ullahnor — Mon, 13 Feb 2017 21:36:11 +0000

Trudeau meets Trump: U of T experts on what's at stake for Canada

ullahnor Mon, 02/13/2017 - 16:36

Cutline

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House today (photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Topic

��Ƶ experts spoke with reporters ahead of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump today, discussing the Canada-U.S. relationship.

Irvin Studin, editor of the Canadian foreign policy magazine Global Brief and a researcher at U of T's School of Public Policy & Governance, said in a CBC Radio interview that Canada has been stuck in America's shadow for too long, and it's now time for us to think for ourselves.

“We're going to have to take some decisions,” Studin said on CBC's The 180. “Some of them will be aligned with American decision-making, but it will be very unsentimentally in our national interest. In the short term, whereas the Americans have been picking off Canadian talent, consciously and unconsciously over the last 70 years, now is an opportunity for us to do the reverse.

“We must be very unsentimental about it. We should be picking off American talent across the sectors. In sciences, in culture, in business, and everything in between. This is an opportunity for Canada to create some of the strategic bulwark to think for itself.”

While we don't share a border with Latin America like the United States, we do share borders with China and Russia, Studin said.

“Another way of looking at it is these are Great Powers at our borders this century, and they're going to squeeze us if we don't bulk up and think for ourselves,” he said.

Trudeau

Prime Minister Trudeau to talk Canada-U.S. relations at U of T

The shove, the comments: U of T experts analyze Trump's first NATO and G7 summits

Trudeau meets Trump: U of T experts on what's at stake for Canada

Read more of the CBC interview