PM, Biden will discuss common good, old irritants

WASHINGTON — Call it the Screen-Shared Summit.

Tuesday’s bilateral meeting of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden — a strictly virtual affair, thanks to COVID-19 — offers hope of a new start for Canada-U. S. relations.

It will be the new president’s first meeting with a foreign leader, and Trudeau’s first chance to advance Canadian interests with the White House without the chaos and anxiety of the last four years.

And while the pandemic may ensure it doesn’t register on the same scale as Brian Mulroney’s 1985 Shamrock Summit with Ronald Reagan, the expectations in Canada are still high.

Whether they are met remains anyone’s guess.

“I don’t want people to rest on their laurels and say, ‘Well, we got the first meeting, so good for us,’” said Maryscott Greenwood, CEO of the Canadian American Business Council.

There is plenty of hard work ahead, including on the Canada-U. S. border, navigating Buy American protectionism, a way forward on China and the thorny issue of cross-border pipelines.

To make progress, Greenwood said, the Prime Minister’s Office might do well to pretend Donald Trump is still president.

“It’s going to be important to have that level of urgency and that level of effort, and not just assume that everything’s good now that Biden’s here.”

Biden has signalled a hard line on Buy American, his suite of protectionist measures aimed at ensuring domestic contractors and suppliers are the primary beneficiaries of U.S. tax dollars spent on infrastructure projects and procurement efforts.