Canada pushes back

Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland didn’t mention Donald Trump by name as she set out the Trudeau government’s foreign policy priorities on Tuesday. She didn’t have to. Canada, like the rest of the world, is scrambling to figure out how to deal with the U.S. president’s relentless “America First” agenda, and Freeland gave a strong, positive answer. The response, she said, must be to reaffirm our long-standing commitment to upholding the international order. If the United States steps back, we and others must step up.

This is right as far as it goes, and it will resonate both with Canadians and others worried to see the U.S., in Freeland’s words, “shrug off the burden of world leadership,” most recently in Trump’s misguided decision to pull out of the Paris Accord on climate change.

The risk for a so-called “middle power” such as Canada, as Freeland pointed out, is that the rule-based system constructed in the aftermath of the Second World War will fray if its traditional champion turns inward. Other, less scrupulous powers, such as China and Russia, will rush to fill the vacuum of leadership.

So Freeland is unquestionably right to underline the often-overlooked benefits for Canada of an “international order based on rules” (including global trade organizations, the United Nations, NATO and the rest). The United States under Trump might be turning its back, but it is to Canada’s advantage to encourage others to join in upholding our shared values. Trump, after all, won’t be there forever.