Tillerson, Freeland show united front
Show of unity in meeting with Freeland
Even Ottawa in bleak mid-winter must have been a nice break for Rex Tillerson, the U.S. Secretary of State.
At least no one here asked him if he had submitted a letter of resignation, as happened the day before when he held a media availability with the French foreign minister.
Tillerson and Canada’s global affairs minister, Chrystia Freeland, presented a united front on issues ranging from North Korea to the North American Free Trade Agreement in an early evening news conference. But that only goes to show how far out of Donald Trump’s orbit the Secretary of State is.
He dismissed talk of resignation as “ridiculous” on Monday, but he and the President apparently don’t see eye to eye on a range of issues — hence the rumours that he’s about to be fired.
If the Canada-U.S. relationship was dependent on Tillerson, it would be on much firmer ground than it is. He talked of co-hosting a meeting of foreign ministers in Vancouver in mid-January on the North Korea crisis as a means of increasing the pressure on the Hermit Kingdom to come to the negotiating table.
Freeland said solidarity is important to demonstrate that the Vancouver Group countries — the original combatants in the Korean conflict, plus countries like India, Japan and Sweden — view North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons as a “threat to our shared security”.
“The pressure campaign will not abate and it will remain in place until they give up nuclear weapons and verify they have done so,” said Tillerson.
On this issue at least, there is common ground — at least as long as diplomatic options remain open.
But for all Tillerson’s talk about negotiating a modernized NAFTA that is “fair to both sides,” there is a gaping chasm between the world views of the two governments that no amount of diplomatic charm can bridge.
You could not find two more contrasting foreign policy strategies than the one laid out by Trump on Monday, and that outlined by Freeland in the House of Commons last May.
Trump sees foreign policy as a game that America will win by investing more on nuclear weapons and the military. Climate change and trade deals have been dropped as national security concerns. Peace would be advanced through strength; prosperity guaranteed by turning inward.
Freeland, on the other hand, explicitly rejected a “Canada First” approach, outlining “shared menaces” like climate change and natural disasters that require an international order based on rules to combat — “one in which might is not always right; one in which more powerful countries are constrained in their treatment of smaller ones by standards that are internationally respected, enforced and upheld”.
“Canada must set our own clear and sovereign course,” she said.
But, as the present prime minister’s father observed so perceptively, our sovereignty is compromised by every twitch and grunt the elephant next door makes.
The longer Trump is in power, the dissonance between his Administration and Justin Trudeau’s government becomes less theoretical.
We cannot ignore what Trump does — the latest example is what academic Jack Mintz called the “tax tsunami” about to crash into the global economy, as the U.S. passes the most extensive tax package in 30 years.
The Trudeau government will be forced to respond to lower corporate tax rates and new rates on investment, if jobs and profits start flowing south.
Tillerson said he is “supportive of a positive outcome” on NAFTA but it is not his file, and even if it were, his opinion likely carries little weight in the White House after he allegedly referred to the President as a “f---ing moron.”
The bottom line is that Canada is trying to negotiate a trade deal with a protectionist president. The Trudeau government has drawn a number of red lines beyond which it says it will not cross; it has hitched itself to Mexico; and, it is pushing an agenda on “progressive” priorities like climate, labour and gender that are an anathema to the President.
If the Canadian government really wants to strike a deal on NAFTA, it may have to accept one where Canada benefits less.
It’s nice that the global affairs minister is on first name terms with her American counterpart.
But Tillerson is probably not buying green bananas for the office fruit-bowl.
The man setting the tone for the Canada-U.S. relationship is fulminating in front of Fox News — and the Prime Minister is further away from a meeting of minds with him than he has ever been.