USA

The helicopter buzzing overhead was just one sign during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s trip to Washington of a tough new reality Canadians face.

Trudeau’s failure to persuade Americans to ease up on Canada in a landmark electric-vehicle plan capped a visit that served a long, loud wake-up call to this new reality.

Former U.S. president Donald Trump’s protectionist impulses were no aberration: this era is vastly different from the one that produced the 1965 Auto Pact and spurred decades of Canada-U.S. economic integration.

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden isn’t making any promises about whether he’s willing to alter his controversial tax credit proposal for new electric vehicles.

Biden, meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the Oval Office, says that’s one of the issues the two leaders will talk about.

“I don’t know,” the president said, Trudeau seated to his right, when asked whether he might consider amending the proposal to avoid harming the Canadian auto industry.

One early December morning in 2016, Joe Biden got up, inquired into President Barack Obama’s health, and set off for a snowy Ottawa.

The lame duck vice-president was feted at a ritzy state dinner in the capital, where he called on Justin Trudeau to be a defender of the international “rules of the road” during the period of deep uncertainty he predicted would follow Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th president of the United States.

There may be less drama in this relationship since Mr Biden took office but it hasn’t been smooth sailing and there are rough seas on the horizon.

One observer has said what was once a strategic partnership has become a “largely transactional” relationship.

A big bone of contention is Mr Biden’s embrace of “Buy American” which has become central to his trade agenda.

Critics argue such protectionist policies would increase the costs of goods to consumers and potentially shut out Canadian companies from lucrative US contracts. Alarm bells are ringing “a little louder right now for me”, Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, told the BBC.

I don’t think Biden is driving the electric bus on trade issues, likely not on any issue for that matter. His handlers are and they need to please Big Labour.

… The prime minister argued that the tax credit plan flies in the face of decades of continental integration of the auto sector, from the signing of the 1965 Auto Pact to the new North American trade deal.

“We are a little bit concerned about the zero-emission vehicle mandates, or rebates,” Trudeau said at the event, moderated by former U.S. ambassador to Canada David Jacobson.

“[That] could have a real negative impact.”

If that doesn’t ensure the bill’s passage nothing will.

It’s inevitable that when a Canadian prime minister visits Washington, the trip to the White House generates the most attention — a reality of cross-border politics as enduring as the recycling of quotes from JFK and old jokes about mice sleeping with elephants.

That tradition continues this week, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Washington for a two-day visit culminating in meetings Thursday with the presidents of the United States and Mexico.

But this time, one of the most important stories in continental relations might be unfolding elsewhere, a day early, a dozen blocks east of the White House.

Trudeau’s electric car dreams may go up in smoke. I doubt he cares that Line 5 may be shut down.

Enbridge’s pipeline supplies Eastern Canada with much of its energy supply

With climate pledges and inflation running high on both sides of the border, a recent report made some waves by indicating that the Biden administration was evaluating the impacts of shutting down a major Canadian pipeline passing through the U.S. state of Michigan.

Politico reported in early November that the White House was doing a “deep data dive” to evaluate the impacts on fuel prices in Michigan and surrounding areas if Enbridge’s Line 5 were to be shut down.