Will we welcome America back?
If an old and trusted friend suddenly launched an egregious attack against you, threatening you and your family, what would it take for you to reconcile with them? You would probably demand an apology and then some guarantee about no future attack.
Donald Trump did precisely this to Canada, naming us a national security threat to the United States, threatening our most important trade agreement, and slapping tariffs on our exports. He did this without excuse and with dubious legality. What legacy of this incredibly offensive behaviour does Joe Biden have to manage?
We are far from the only victims of this foreign policy madness by the world’s most powerful country. The list includes the EU, much of Asia and Latin America. Joe Biden has called for an end to this rebirth of the American isolationism of the ’20s and ’30s, the recrudescence of pro-fascist Charles Lindbergh’s “America First.”
Biden has proclaimed that “America’s Back.” But that return must be a reciprocal engagement, not merely an American declaration. The last four years have inflicted great damage to the postwar political, financial and security infrastructure. Its repair requires both Trump’s victims and the new administration to work in partnership.
In a lighthearted celebration of the transition, American pundit Dana Milbank said that he believed his nation’s “long and bitter struggle with the Kingdom of Denmark may soon be coming to an end.” He added that it may be possible to “negotiate a lasting peace with our implacable foes to the North … And there is even the prospect of peace in our time with Australia.”
Yes, it is tempting to sweep Trump’s idiocy aside with merely an ironic backward glance. But damage was done, trust was broken and the offences will not soon be forgotten. Europeans learned they need an independent security apparatus, not one entirely dependent on the United States. Latin America learned they had better partners in Portugal and Spain, their former colonial masters. Canada once again learned the cost of depending on access to our largest trading partner and the importance of believing we’re being treated fairly.
Pierre Trudeau tried to promote deeper trade diversification with Europe, and failed. The Harper government launched the creation of a new trade agreement foundation to our relationship with the EU, but it has so far been of little impact. Canadian business needs to learn that Asian partners of greater value and reliability than China should now be developed: India, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.
Africa, long a focus of Canada’s development assistance, is now on the verge of an economic leap forward and dramatic growth rates. Our leaders in fintech and tech services could be valuable strategic partners of local leaders in countries like Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya. To date, Canadian investments in Africa have mostly been in mining, but the booming young populations in large cities are probably a better focus for services investment today.
Barack Obama was sneered at by Republicans as he undertook rebuilding international relationships after the fiasco of the Iraq invasion. They taunted that Americans resented the tone of his “apology tour.” Yet Obama did successfully cultivate new alliances, and refurbish those damaged by George W. Bush’s impetuous “regime change” campaigns.
Now Joe Biden will need to do it again, after the far deeper cuts and bruises inflicted by the soon-to-be former shambolic president and his incompetent aides. Yes, Biden should apologize for the outrageous insults thrown at allied leaders. He’ll also need to offer more than rhetoric to persuade those horrified by the past four years, in order to prove he is taking steps to ensure it is not repeated one more time.
As conservative former CIA and NSC executive Kenneth Pollack concluded this week, reflecting on the United States challenges in the Middle East, “but we might remember that the United States is often the most difficult ally of them all.”