Indigenous people in the United States have been marginalized and discriminated against for centuries with restricted access to health care, land rights and much more. Yet, unfortunately, this glaring problem persists. 

Several U.S. states have laws that deliberately restrict and limit tribal sovereignty. Glimpse From the Globe sat down with Mr. Jair Peltier of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota to discuss this issue. Peltier is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Political Science and International Relations department at the University of Southern California. His research involves indigenous sovereignty and tribal constitutions. Peltier is also a graduate cultural ambassador for the Native American Pasifika lounge.

Q: During the 1830s, a trio of cases presented to the U.S. Supreme Court held that tribes possess a nationhood status and retain inherent powers of self-government. Since then, there have been countless instances of Indigenous people being denied their rights, even in modern-day America. Keeping this in mind — To what extent does the United States recognize tribal sovereignty? Do you think this is a need-based relationship? 

A: What it comes down to is that, the federal government is required to recognize indigenous sovereignty by the laws, and it is a very delicate relationship so it tries its best to avoid it as much as possible. Broadly within the American bureaucracy, native people are given, at least now, leeway or preference, I should say. 

The federal government has the right to derecognize any rights the tribes have as a sovereign nation and eliminate them as a federally recognized tribe. This actually almost happened during the Trump administration. The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts were almost derecognized because they weren’t “native enough” anymore. I would say it’s a balance, tribes are a sovereign nation until [the U.S.]Congress says otherwise. That’s kind of how the view is by the courts. 

But it just takes a simple act of Congress to take that right away, so they are guaranteed until they’re not, basically. To the question of whether this is a need-based relationship, the United States would rather not have that relationship. However, the federal government is obligated to because of the treaties they signed. Hence, they are required to provide native people with education, health care, both kinds of things, so that’s why we have Indian health services, that’s why we have the bureau of Indian Education. 

A lot of times I would say they prefer not to have the relationship, because it just complicates things for developers, for the states — the states have a lot of contention. Like the federal trust relationship, they don’t like the idea that they can’t directly deal with the tribe, they can’t regulate anything that happens with the tribe. So there is this kind of tug of war between the states and the federal government that takes place with the tribes.

Q: Many stereotypes against Native Americans exist to this day. What stigma and stereotypes surround indigenous peoples and their tribes? 

A: What it comes down to is this idea that native people are primitive. So, ever since the inception of this country [the United States], there has been this narrative that native people are savages and are not developed to have civilization, they don’t have culture, they are just brutish humans or even subhumans. So ever since then, there has always been this desire to paint them as uncivilized, when in reality, they have complex societies, they have governments, they have trade, they have complex trade routes, trade complexes, everything, even the idea of democracy. 

The Iroquois league actually inspired the U.S government to have separation of powers in their system and that’s recognized, Congress recognized that in like the 90s but they put it in the very middle of like an omnibus bill, nobody even saw it. The settlers, the native people are seen to be villains, villains to be conquered and then when they are dead, we have society. So that is the danger of these stereotypes and you see that every day in tribal communities. 

The other side of it, the side other than stereotypes of being primitive and uneducated, there’s also stereotypes of the sexualization of Indian women, of native women.

Q: How binding are tribal constitutions and what is the level of their jurisdiction? Do they conflict with federal and state laws? 

A: The tribal constitutions are binding within the tribal territory, within tribal land. Their laws, they are the ones they write themselves. But the thing about tribal constitutions and constitutional reform is that they have to follow the federal government. You have to get approval from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and you have to get approval from Congress, so if Congress decides to limit your laws, it can do that. 

All it takes is a law. Congress can pass a law and a tribe can be limited from exercising a certain sovereign right or passing a certain law. I think that what tribes need to do more of is test the limits, so tribes need to be more willing to break the rules, even if they know that this is going to lead to a court case. A court case is exactly what we want. We should be, in a way, I don’t want to say weaponizing, but we should be using the tribal court or the federal courts in our favor and the only way we are going to get those rights and victories is if we have a case in the first place. 

So, the way I would approach it is find out what we want to do, see if it’s allowed and if it’s allowed, do it, if it’s not allowed, do it anyway. Take the government to court and have the courts decide whether or not you can do it, and I would be willing to bet that the [U.S.] Supreme Court would recognize  our rights more so than the federal government. 

Q: As a Native American yourself, what systemic discrimination do you face? Do you think your rights are restricted?

A: Growing up, I experienced racism in my hometown. I went to a predominantly white school in North Dakota, and there was definitely racism directed towards native people. Often complaining that native people are welfare cases, you know, that they’re drunks, they’re all on drugs… they wouldn’t say  explicitly that it’s the natives, they would say it’s the people from out east, because that’s where the reservation is. 

Some were very explicit. I remember there was a native friend of mine, he was talking to a white guy in high school and the white guy was talking about natives in a very bad way, and my friend said, “Oh, well, you know I’m native,” and he said, “Oh, well you’re one of the good ones, you know.” 

And then of course, and excuse me, I don’t mean to upset you, but  “prairie N***er” is a word that is used against Native people. It’s a racial slur that is— I wouldn’t say it’s common, but it happens. Though, the thing about me is that I was always rather white passing, so I didn’t feel as much the sting of racism and disadvantage, as the more brown, darker skin Native people that I know. In my family, my sister especially faced racial epithets. This is because of misrepresentation and not enough representation.

Q: USC recently named the Center for Public and International Affairs building after Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow — a war chief of the Crow Nation. I know you recommended his name without expecting it to be chosen. That being said, how has your experience been here at USC both in terms of community and resources? Do you feel you have to overcompensate and be overqualified/more than the required for equal treatment/opportunities? 

A: I first came to USC in the fall of 2019, and back then I would say that I was new in town. I wasn’t really looking for “my place”, you know, I had a home, I had a girlfriend at the time, I didn’t really spend much time on campus outside of being at home or in class. But eventually, I did find the Native American Student Union, which was mostly undergrads, but I would sit in on meetings and things like that. It was during the time when they were making the transition into being the Native American Student Assembly, so I was really happy to help and add to the good work they were already doing. 

What I have found at USC generally is, at least in the last 3 years, it has been responsive to native people. They want more native people to be visible, land acknowledgements are growing in popularity around the country and I think USC is also increasing the use of land acknowledgements. I think having a permanent land acknowledgment it would be great, but that may be in the years to come. 

But, the thing about it is that my department hasn’t been as supportive in that particular light, the Political Science and International Relations PhD program. So, the first year was really hard for me because I have all these ideas for research on indigenous sovereignty, tribal nations, tribal constitutions, and there is a lot of dismissiveness from the faculty. They’re like, “Oh, I don’t know about this, I don’t know anything about it, go talk to someone else.” Or they’re like, “Why are you in political science?” That was the question I got a lot. “Why are you here in POIR?,” “Why are you here?” 

I would get asked by faculty members — these are people who are supposed to support me, a graduate student. They would just say, “Well why aren’t you in anthropology?” or “why aren’t you in American Indian studies?” 

And I’m like, because what I want to study is political in nature. If you do not believe that tribes are sovereign, then you relegate these ideas and concepts to anthropology, relegate them to  history maybe or to native studies. But if you truly believe tribes are sovereign, which I do full heartedly, this is a political question.There’s a political nature to my research. So finding support had been rather difficult, at least in the first year. 

I did eventually find my faculty advisor. She’s been really helpful, she’s been really good, Alison Dundes-Renteln. I wish I had met her sooner. But, aside from a couple allies early on, she was the first professor who seemed really interested in pushing my research forward. She validated my research goals and always reassured me that there is a place for Indigenous people in this program.

Q: Everytime a national movement gains momentum, progresses and moves one step forward, we see it take two steps back. Do you think this is happening with the American Indian movement with not many advocates in politics? Finally, what do you think is the future of Indiginous people here in the United States and how can we, as students, help and advocate for indiginous rights? 

A: Well, I would say it’s definitely a slow process but I think there’s generally been progress made over the years. What we need is creativity and innovation and Native people are very creative. 

Native people are very good at creating novel ideas and making novel connections. This all goes back to the oral tradition and free sharing of ideas and stories in an accessible way, enabling diversity of perspective. Native people need to embrace their sovereignty and exercise it in a more purposeful way. 

For many years, the policy applied in Indian Country has been applied in a domestic sense. However, when you consider that tribes are sovereign nations, it becomes clear that you have to apply international concepts and principles. 

Once we do that, then we open up an avenue for political and economic development. And to the last question, I would say that the most important thing for non-native people to do is educate themselves. Learn local indigenous history and gain a better perspective on the lives of indigenous people who are still here. How did the land beneath your feet become “America?” When you answer that honestly and openly, then we can start addressing the issues facing Native people and approach strong and lasting solutions.

To the readers, reach out to your local tribes and start a conversation. Decolonization is a process that requires the cooperation of the descendants of settler colonizers. There is no one alive today who is to blame for the destruction of indigenous people. But many continue to profit from this legacy and should strive for justice.

The post Tribal Sovereignty and the Fate of Indigenous People appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

Climate change is no longer a distant threat of the future but rather a devastating actor in the present. Unfortunately, this reality was preventable. For decades, indigenous climate activists desperately called for action, only for the world to cast them aside and subsequently ignore them as they were kidnapped and murdered. In contrast, white Western scientists, such as Allan Chornak, have recently received international praise for peaceful sit-ins and social media campaigns. 

This unequal response is representative of the international climate regime, which is tainted by a history of coercion and dominance from the Global North. Historically, many developed states of the Global North, such as the United States, UK, Australia and others, used their economic position to influence global (in)action and silence the Global South. Only recently, the international community has finally begun to be more inclusive of traditionally marginalized voices in political and scientific discourse, specifically indigenous peoples. 

Domestically, in recognition of indigenous knowledge and after a century of the oppression of indigenous-controlled burn practices, California reversed its policy. It now permits the practice to mitigate the increasing number of wildfires due to rising global temperatures. 

On the international level, for one of the first instances in an international climate treaty, the 2016 Paris Agreement acknowledged the value of “traditional knowledge, knowledge of indigenous peoples and local knowledge systems.”

Beyond this important recognition of indigenous knowledge, Paris was revolutionary because it was one of the first times that one of the great drivers for change was believed to be science, specifically the Fifth IPCC Assessment. The knowledge within this report was used by lobbyists, NGOs and the Global South to convince the Global North to take action; however, despite the impact of this report, the knowledge from many of the world’s leading environmental caretakers was excluded. 

The IPCC Assessments attempt to accumulate existing scientific data to create apolitical reports that “provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies.” Yet, the information from this report focuses nearly entirely on scientific knowledge accumulated from the Global North. Additionally, despite the fact that the majority of the world’s population resides in the Global South, nearly 70% of the IPCC data collection task force’s members represent countries from the Global North.

Unfortunately, the exclusion of indigenous peoples and the Global South does not stop at the decision-making table. Even afterward, due to the way it is distributed and translated, the IPCC reports and countless other climate science literature are inaccessible to many communities. This is in part due to the wide range of languages spoken within these populations as, although indigenous people make up less than 5% of the world’s population, they speak more than half of the world’s languages. 

In lieu of this fact and the existence of nearly 7,000 languages worldwide, the Sixth IPCC Assessment, arguably the most important piece of climate science literature, was translated into six languages in February 2022. 

The six languages chosen by the IPCC are the six UN official languages: English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian and Chinese. These languages objectively communicate with a large audience as nearly half of the world speaks at least one of these languages. However, regardless of their wide reach, these are languages of oppression or colonial languages for much of the world. This selection of languages also disproportionately excludes the Global South and indigenous communities who are statistically much more linguistically diverse and typically learn UN languages as second or third languages, if at all. 

If indigenous peoples “comprise less than 5% of the world population” but “protect 80% of the Earth’s biodiversity,” why are they still excluded? 

Climate science literature is vital to help individuals more accurately assess the crisis we now face and better advocate for change. Therefore, IPCC reports and other important climate science literature must be translated into more languages to reach the voices of the Global South and those most susceptible to the impacts of climate change. 

Additionally, to combat the effects of our changing planet, scientific literature and the scientific community must broaden their approach to include a wider range of knowledge, specifically that from indigenous communities. As Dr. Morcom notes, indigenous communities and languages “possess so much knowledge of culture… and they contain priceless environmental knowledge that helps us relate well to the land on which we live.”

The Global North continues to hold financial and political leverage within our current climate change regime. However, their voices are not the ones that should be centered. In scientific literature and all decision-making conversations, indigenous knowledge and languages must be better represented if we are to combat climate change successfully. 

The post The Most Important Languages are Being Excluded from Climate Conversations appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

It should not take 10 months and a heartbroken community for law enforcement to care about the disappearance of one of its citizens. 

On Aug. 24 Gabby Petito called her mother for the last time before disappearing while visiting Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, where she had been vacationing with her fiancé Brian Laundrie. On Sept. 11, Gabby Petito’s family reported her missing after days of short texts then no communication at all. Just eight days after her disappearance was reported, authorities discovered her body, and Gabby Petito’s story flooded national headlines. 

Unfortunately, the feelings of hopelessness, loss and grief that Gabby’s family and friends feel is a harsh reality for many Indigenous communities across the country. Native women are disappearing en masse, yet public interest seems to focus solely on disappearances of white women.

Without diminishing the tragic death of Gabby Petito, the media must begin focusing on a systemic issue: the blatant disregard for missing and murdered Indigenous women. 

Reporting on missing and murdered Indigenous women has been a widely underrepresented issue in the media for decades. The Urban Indian Health Institute found that the third leading cause of death for American Indian/Alaska, Native women was murder.The third leading cause of death among white women? Chronic lower respiratory disease. Over the past two decades, Indigenous people comprised 21% of all homicides in Wyoming, even though they only make up 3% of the population.

Indigenous women suffer disproportionately high murder rates compared to their white counterparts and receive disproportionately low media attention. According to the University of Wyoming’s Survey and Analysis Center, “Only 30% of Indigenous homicide victims had newspaper media coverage, compared to 51% of white homicide victims. Indigenous female victims had the least, with only 18% coverage.” On a national scale, in a survey of 71 cities, the National Crime Information Center reported, in 2016, “there were 5,712 reports of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls, though the US Department of Justice’s federal missing persons database, NamUs, only logged 116 cases.” A less than 3% reporting record. Which begs the question: why is violence in these communities so underreported? 

Domestic crime rates and concentration in rural communities partially account for higher violence and lower media coverage. The smaller population size and ruralness of Indigenous communities may make them more susceptible to silent crime, given that fewer police resources are allocated to these communities. These missing persons cases may also be connected to drug cartels and human traffickers, which prey on vulnerable and marginalized communities. Concentration in rural communities partially explains why the US media narrative perpetually excludes Indigenous women, however issues of jurisdiction, patterns of drug dealing and structures of human trafficking contribute significantly to the systematic underreporting of disappearances and murders against women in the Indigenous community. 

JURISDICTION AND THE COURTS

In an interview with Jair Peltier, a USC Doctoral Student, he noted that Indigenous jurisdiction varies by tribe, but one consistent quality is that crimes committed on a reservation by non-tribal people cannot be prosecuted by tribal courts and must be sent to federal court. Tribal courts are only allowed to govern their own people on their land, not outside individuals that come and wreak havoc. 

Abigail Echo-Hawk, chief research officer for the Seattle Indian Health Board said, “This maze of jurisdiction that exists — that is, who does what investigations and who’s responsible for what — is part of this system of inequity.” These blurred lines and gaps in jurisdiction leaves the question of who will investigate these kidnappings? This robbery of governance is an insult to the authority of Indigenous people and their courts on their land. 

Tribal prosecutor TaNeel Filesteel stated, “At one point the Fort Belknap Tribal Government had five law enforcement officers patrolling a territory equivalent to two-thirds the size of the state of Rhode Island, 7,000 citizens protected by five officers.” Scenarios like this make it much easier to kidnap someone with no evidence or trace. Not only are indigenous communities consistently under-enforced, but the insufficient number of available officers are further limited by “an almost total lack of protocols, mandated training and coordination among law enforcement systems.” Perpetual lack of funding, hiring and adequate training of law enforcement “has ensnared victims in ongoing cycles of exploitation.”

No comprehensive government body currently protects Indigenous people because federal and state authorities remain incapable, or unwilling, to relinquish authority that rightfully belongs to Indigenous people. WSAC reports that “50% of Indigenous homicides between 1999 and 2017 are missing from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports.” Disorganized collaboration between these governing bodies affects the outcomes for Indigenous peoples’ lives, and the families and communities after these lives have been taken and abused.  Coordination between these governing bodies must be mended if there is to be any change in the safety of Indigenous lives and livelihoods. 

SUBSTANCE ABUSE

Opioids and other addictive drugs have also become an increasingly prevalent issue in many Indigenous communities. Typically, reservations are concentrated in rural localities, so drug dealers commute from urban cities to distribute their supply. Drug dealers can deliberately exploit these areas, where competition in the narcotic trade is limited, to sell at an extremely high price. According to Peltier, the drug trade in indigenous communities harms residents twice over: once by price gouging, and second, and more destructively, by introducing addictive narcotics to these communities, leaving Indigenous people, especially women, more vulnerable to violence and kidnapping. 

Individuals under the influence of drugs may be more likely to be targeted for assault and less likely to defend themselves against perpetrators. Furthermore, communities suffering from widespread addiction often face diminished or delayed reporting rates. The prevalence of substance abuse in Indigenous communities may also deter families from reporting because they could think that their missing loved one is “just coming down from a high” or “is out doing drugs.” 

Furthermore, drug influx influences how authorities and the media perceive missing or murdered Indigenous persons. WSAC reported that “[n]egative character framing was in 16% of the articles about Indigenous people. None of the articles about missing white people included negative character framing.” This negative framing materializes in reports about what drugs were found in the body during the autopsy instead of focusing on the situational factors that led up to the death itself. Focusing on the victim’s drug use, rather than the violent crime itself, promotes negative stereotypes about the Indigenous community and dilutes the efficacy of criminal investigations.

THE CRISIS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING

The most common cause for missing and murdered Indigenous women is human trafficking. More than half of Indigenous Women experience sexual violence (56.1%) This staggering statistic of abuse and violence plays a vital part in human and sex trafficking in these communities. In 2015, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) found “an estimated 40 percent of women who are victims of sex trafficking identify as American Indian, Alaska Native, or First Nations.” When being sex trafficked, like any woman, they are stripped of their value, confidence and worth. A study done by NCAI Policy Research Center concluded 9 out of 10 trafficking victims suffer neurological symptoms and depression following sex trafficking and “52% had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) at the time of the interview— a rate that is in the range of PTSD among combat veterans.” 

The kidnapping, sexual abuse and senseless murders of Indigenous women boils down to an issue of respect. According to Peltier, many Indigenous peoples are matriarchal, and women are often the life givers and heads of the households. Non-tribal assaults on women attack the very essence of Indigenous culture.

At the root of this disrespect against Indigenous women and culture lies the seed of colonial supremacy, the idea of conquering and owning Indigenous women as if they were land. Early European settlers viewed Indigenous women as exotic and sexually fascinating, a blatant objectification of these women and obvious contradiction to their immense cultural and political value within their tribes. This hypersexualization caused many European men to perceive Indigenous women as immoral. Colonial norms of hypersexualization and dehumanization began the cycle of systemic exploitation of Indigenous women that we see exemplified today in sex trafficking of Indigenous women. 

Women abducted into sex trafficking are sold off to the highest bidder, and sometimes when not compliant they could end up dead. In New Mexico, Indigenous women only comprise “about 11% of the state’s population, [yet]they account for nearly a quarter of trafficking victims,” and Native American women in South Dakota represent 40% of sex trafficking victims, despite Native Americans making up only 8% of the population. This is the sad reality for many other states as well. These jarring statistics are not just numbers, they are real women that have been affected in all aspects of life by trafficking.   

From the first settlers, institutions and norms designed to benefit white Americans have stripped the respect that Indigenous women deserve. They are the backbone of their communities yet they consistently go missing and sometimes are never to be found. 

“Growing up I didn’t have the opportunity to know who my Grandma was. Her life was taken too soon, and her body was found on the Rez. I know as much of my Grandma as the crime that took her life,” said Fawna Friday, a member of the Northern Arapaho tribe and Granddaughter of Elsie Louise Hungry Fowler.

Elsie Louise Hungry Fowler deserved better. Fawna should not face the same fears as her grandmother. The simple request to not be objectified, kidnapped or killed, but to be respected, should be honored, recognized and upheld. Indigenous women deserve better in every way. 

This starts with reporting. Indigenous women are continuously disregarded, and historically the media has remained complacent. This must stop. Media organizations must report all peoples equally, from Gabby Peptito to Mary Johnson to Elsie Louise Hungry Fowler. They all deserve to be represented, reported and respected. 

The next step is to clarify jurisdiction. Indigenous people should be able to try crimes committed on their land and against their people, despite who may have committed the crime. The US government has taken steps to address some of these issues, however, their steps have been less than exhaustive.

In 2019, the Trump Administration introduced the Task Force on Missing and Murdered AI/ANs, also recognized as Operation Lady Justice (OLJ). This “Task Force aims to enhance the criminal justice system and address the legitimate concerns of AI/AN communities, regarding missing and murdered people – specifically missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.” In 2021, the Biden administration created the Missing and Murdered Unit under the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs. 

On the surface, these organizations seem like big strides in the right direction, but as Gerry Davis endured the tortuous process of attempting to achieve justice for her missing sister, she was made to feel irrelevant, like her story and her sister didn’t matter. Although the formulation of this unit and task force is admirable, what does it matter if it makes no difference in the lives of whom it matters most?

WSAC suggests steps toward respecting and preserving the dignity of those missing and murdered: “Develop consistent protocols and data systems for MMIPs to inform both law enforcement and families. Pay particular attention to documenting tribal affiliation in official records,” and “Create an Indigenous advocacy position/response team to help families navigate the reporting and investigation process.”  This advocacy would help “reduce the emotional burden for families of repeating incident details to multiple agencies.” Lastly, to “[r]aise community awareness about the prevalence of MMIP, contributing risk and protective factors, and available resources.” 

These are the first steps of many in the fight for protecting and justly reporting cases of Indigenous women, but there is so much more to be done.

To conclude this article I’d like to acknowledge that all of the present-day United States is occupying Indigenous land. I want to recognize and honor the people and land that I currently live and study on which is that of the “Tongva people and their neighbors: (from North to South) the Chumash, Tataviam, Kitanemuk, Serrano, Cahuilla, Payomkawichum, Acjachemen, Ipai-Tipai, Kumeyaay, and Quechan peoples.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of resources to help inform which were accumulated with the help of Jair Peltier.

Organizations: 

National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center 

Sovereign Bodies Institute 

Articles: 

Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women in Canada and Governmental Response

Combatting Violence Against Indigenous Women

The post Unsolved: When Indigenous Women Go Missing appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

NEW YORK — The Biden administration has expressed an interest in reinvigorating U.S.-Canada relations following a virtual meeting between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau early February. The meeting, which was the first between the then newly-inaugurated president and a foreign head of state, focused on each country’s response to COVID-19, economic cooperation during the pandemic and moving forward, as well as other shared interests among the two close allies. As the White House begins forming its foreign policy objectives and global leadership, it is essential to consider the current state of U.S.-Canada relations and where the two countries may be headed moving forward.

“Generally in world politics, there are no permanent friends, but permanent interests. But, there is supposed to be a special exception for some countries,” said Brian Bow, director at the Center for the Study of Security and Development at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, in an exclusive interview with Glimpse from the Globe. “It is not unique to the U.S.-Canada relationship, but Canada has a special relationship with the U.S. and Canadians were happy with that in the first half of the Cold War.”

When former President Richard Nixon reformed the United States’ economic policy in 1971, which is often referred to as the “Nixon Shock,” along with leaving the Gold Standard, Nixon began putting tariffs on products leaving the United States.

“Most countries reacted with hostility, but no one was more surprised than the Canadians,” Bow said. “They assumed it was a mistake that they weren’t on the list of countries that wouldn’t need to pay these surcharges.”

Following the change invoked by Nixon in U.S. international economic foreign policy, Canada had to do some “soul-searching,” as Bow said. Canada began realizing that they needed to have other partners rather than just entirely relying on the United States. Canada tried to diversify its economic partners, but ultimately failed, as penetrating new markets, especially in Asia, can be pricey and full of uncertainty. As a result, the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement was signed in 1989, signaling that economic relations would return to normal. This agreement; which eliminated all tariffs on trade, was a precursor to NAFTA, which was then enacted in 1994. 

“Even since then, there have been these recurring periods where Canada hasn’t liked the direction the U.S. has been going in,” Bow said. “The controversy with the Bush administration over the war in Iraq in 2003 was a big one, and the election of the Trump administration in 2016 was another one.”

Bow believes that the current administration in Ottawa is better aligned with President Biden than it was with Trump. That said, he believes there is a possibility of Trump-like rhetoric making its way into Canadian politics in the future. 

“When I was a teenager in Canada, stylish clothing would make its way about five years after it appeared in America,” Bow said. “The same thing can happen with policies and parties in Canada trying on Trump-style rhetoric.” 

The possibility of conservative politicians in Canada imitating the populist and often provocative language of Trump will certainly impact relations between the two neighbors. While this style of rhetoric is not prominent in Canada yet, Canadians, including Bow, are worried this could occur in the future. The next federal election in Canada could see a tight race between liberals and conservatives. Current polls show Prime Minister Trudeau with a narrow five-point lead, but Biden’s win may have an effect on Canadian elections. Many politically engaged Canadians are happy that the Biden administration will be holding office for the next four years; a recent poll showed that four in five Canadians hoped for a Biden win. 

Canadians are excited and hopeful about the Biden administration’s position on various issues, namely climate change. Undoubtedly, the Biden administration is taking the threat of climate change more seriously than the previous administration. Already, Biden has appointed former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, a new position within the cabinet. Additionally, the U.S., as of February 19, has rejoined the Paris Agreement with the international goal of keeping global warming below two degrees celsius, needed to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. Canada is also a signatory of this agreement and has fiercely advocated for its importance. Most recently, on February 25th, Biden and Treadau announced that they would be coming together to reach their goal of net zero emissions by 2050 with their “U.S.-Canada Partnership Roadmap.” 

The Partnership works to align the goals and climate policies of each country so that they can cooperate more efficiently. In addition to aligning policies, the plan hopes to create more policies and projects that will promote job growth, address inequality and combat the effects of climate change. Advocating for the creation of clean-energy infrastructure and ensuring that cross-border energy is renewable is at the core of this partnership. Biden and Trudeau also committed to having polluters take responsibility for their damages.

In addition to the announcement of the plan, Trudeau said that “U.S. leadership has been sorely missed over the past years… [it is]nice when the Americans are not pulling out all references to climate change and instead adding them.” 

While both countries must implement long-term goals for climate change to protect our planet, the issue of COVID-19 has taken precedent this past year as over 500,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. alone as of February 2021. 

During the initial meeting between Biden and Trudeau, COVID-19 was the primary focus. Both leaders agreed that cooperation in combating the virus was essential. Canada has struggled to vaccinate its population due to supplies being bought up by larger economies like the United States and United Kingdom. As part of his statement, Trudeau raised the idea of buying vaccines produced in the United States. Canada is currently receiving vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna plants in Europe and Biden’s team reportedly said that it was the administration’s priority to “ensure every American is vaccinated.” 

It is unlikely, however, that the United States would sell vaccines produced domestically to Canada until late summer at the earliest. As of February 20th, 2021, only 2.43% of Canadians had received at least one dose of the vaccine compared to about 14% of the U.S. population. 

Despite the challenges associated with vaccine distribution, the United States and Canada have committed to keeping trade as open as possible. The Prime Minister’s office emphasized “the importance of avoiding measures that may constrain the critical trade and supply-chain security between our countries” in a public statement. Economically, it is in the best interest of both nations to keep borders open and encourage trade to avoid unemployment and increase GDP.   

Although Canadian and U.S. interests are more aligned than in previous years, on his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order to end the expansion of the Keystone XL pipeline, a project supported by the Government of Alberta, a provincial government of Canada. The Keystone XL pipeline, which began planning and construction in 2008, travels from Canada through Texas. The pipeline, which began operating in 2010, was scheduled for an expansion to be able to carry even more oil. Despite the pipeline providing economic benefits to both countries, Biden canceled the project in order to protect the environment and indigenous communities. A January statement from the White House said that “the President acknowledged Prime Minister Trudeau’s disappointment regarding the decision to rescind the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.” 

Bow said that the pipeline will hurt domestic relations between the local governments and the federal government in Canada, rather than hurting diplomatic relations between Ottawa and Washington. Given that Trudeau is substantially worried about political support in his country, this may be why he showed disdain for the cancellation of the project. 

“The prairie provinces who are the major oil exporters in Canada are the ones who really desperately wanted Keystone to go through, and people in other parts of Canada don’t really care that much about it,” Bow said. “There are real differences between Canadians on those issues.” 

While the Trudeau administration did not express as much distress about the cancellation of the project, in a statement released by the Government of Alberta, Premier Jason Kenney expressed his disturbance with Biden’s actions to cancel the Presidential permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. He highlighted the 2,000 jobs that would be lost due to the cancellation of the project. The statement also said, “That’s not how you treat a friend and ally.”

Even though some of the provincial governments may not support President Biden, there is no reason to believe that the Trudeau administration, which will be in office for at least the majority of Biden’s stay in the White House, will become hostile with the U.S. over this issue, especially as, since the cancellation of the project, Trudeau and Biden have already begun working on several projects together. 

The future of U.S.-Canada relations looks hopeful as the two countries are already working together to tackle global issues such as climate change and COVID-19. However, the  relationship between the two countries can change depending on the issues at hand and the administration holding office. 

With the popularity of Trumpism in the United States and growing support of populism in Canada, both countries could experience major political shifts once the two leaders are up for re-election. However, until then, the neighbors will most likely continue to work cooperatively together and advance the two countries’ unique historical, cultural and geographical relationship.

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Ever since he gained global attention during his 2018 presidential campaign, Bolsonaro has drawn international criticism for his inflammatory comments. His presidency has only solidified his reputation as a jingoist, authoritarian president who unabashedly promotes his controversial socially conservative opinions. As damaging as it can be to live under a president with a hefty record of sexist, racist, and downright insensitive comments (an experience not entirely foreign to other nations such as the U.S. and Great Britain who also recently elected controversial leaders), Bolsonaro’s policies unfortunately reflect his provocative political persona.

After a year in office, he has pursued policies that relax gun restrictions, cripple the federal environmental protection service, attempted to eliminate the federal indigenous health agency, and engaged in a lengthy list of other efforts to undermine the stability of vulnerable populations in Brazil. Within the first year of his term, deforestation has increased by 85 percent. His political agenda has left no demographic more exposed to disaster than indigenous populations, especially rural communities in the Amazon.

Unsurprisingly, these rural indigenous communities have suffered the repercussions of the COVID-19 outbreak and wildfire surges the most, without any meaningful support from their president.

Indigenous populations, which constitute around 13 percent of the population of Brazil, suffer from COVID-related deaths at a rate almost 250 percent higher than the general population. Brazil’s Indigenous People Articulation (APIB), the umbrella advocacy organization for indigenous communities in Brazil, estimates that Brazil’s 850,000 Indigenous people have endured 26,443 confirmed cases and around 700 deaths, as of late August 2020. An average of two indigenous Brazilians die as a result of COVID-19 every day. These are likely to be low estimates considering even the most capable agencies have difficulty developing accurate measurements of the virus among rural populations.

In Parque das Tribos, an indigenous neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital city of the Amazonas region, a lack of governmental support has forced community members to support themselves. Because local leaders are often older and more susceptible to symptoms of the virus, young professionals bear the brunt of the logistical aid to communities: forming grassroots networks of community support, driving neighbors to hospitals, deriving naturalist remedies for symptoms, and making endless (and seemingly futile) calls to the federal health agency with pleas for more support. Despite impressive demonstrations of community solidarity, the pervasive feeling among residents is one of abandonment.

Parque das Tribos is just one of many such communities. Indigenous Brazilians across the country, deserted by their government and racked with existential terror for their future, have begun protesting against the Bolsonaro administration. In late August, enraged indigenous communities took to the streets. Protestors blocked a major highway, a crucial route for transporting agricultural products out of the Amazon, donning signs urging Bolsonaro to “protect the Amazon” and support “indigenous rights” under an oppressive layer of wildfire smoke.

Indigenous communities were not the only Brazilians to take to the streets. Thousands of citizens have protested Bolsonaro’s education and pension policies since he took office, and more recently protesters have objected to his approach to COVID vaccines. 

Somehow, Bolsonaro continually dismisses any dissidents as “idiots.” Even as indigenous protests continue to gain traction, spreading from Brazil to Colombia, Bolsonaro shamelessly brushes off legitimate criticism as unfounded. Indigenous communities across Latin America continue to march under the banner of “indigenous rights,” calling for equitable land rights, infrastructure investment, and liberty to enforce their own environmental policies, especially in this time of crisis. Bolsonaro turns a blind eye.

To make matters worse for native Amazonians, wildfires erupted with unprecedented strength at the beginning of the dry season in early May and have raged ever since. Unlike the forest ecosystems in California and Australia, wildfires do not naturally occur in the wetlands of the Amazon, and recent trends of annual wildfires are a direct result of deforestation, pollution, and increasing global temperatures — all of which have been exacerbated by Bolsonaro’s lax approach to environmental protectionism.

These fires have been encroaching on indigenous communities, damaging food supplies, destroying homes, and disrupting  already strained and precarious health care systems. Even for communities that lie beyond the fire line, wildfire smoke leaves eyes, throats, and lungs more exposed to the respiratory effects of COVID-19. According to Human Rights Watch, demand for healthcare, especially respiratory medicine such as inhalers, increases on average by 30 percent every wildfire season, and indigenous health care officials annually struggle to accommodate this massive seasonal demand — even before COVID-19 loomed over vulnerable populations.

In the face of anger and desperation, the Bolsonaro administration has failed to develop a comprehensive plan of action, and Bolsonaro himself only occasionally acknowledges the catastrophic state of the economic and physical health of Brazil’s indigenous people. 

In early May, Bolsonaro deployed the army to combat wildfires, granting them permission to seek out illegal logging, deforestation, and fires. However, many residents argue the army’s presence has only exacerbated conditions in the rainforest, and research concurs that the army’s presence, which consists more of infrastructure projects than raids on illegal activity, has done more harm than good.

Despite domestic and international criticism of military deployment and inadequate plans to combat these crises, Bolsonaro continually refuses to address the pleas of indigenous communities for additional masks, PPE, hygiene supplies, and medical personnel. 

Instead, the president made a mediocre attempt to provide aid to rural Amazonian populations by sending medical personnel from SESAI, the national administration for indigenous health. However, the bureau hastily deployed its workers without sufficient efforts to prevent disease transmission from the medical professionals to patients who were not previously exposed. As a result of SESAI’s irresponsible and ignorant aid tactics, the Bolsonaro administration likely accelerated the spread of the virus among remote populations.

In addition to his failure to support marginalized communities, Bolsonaro has publicly and repeatedly denied the dire nature of wildfires and touted his self-proclaimed success at limiting the impacts of the virus.

In his 2019 speech before the UN General Assembly, Bolsonaro blamed wildfires in the Amazon on indigenous communities, as if native Amazonians — who have called those forests home long before colonizers arrived — were foolishly engaging in cultural rituals that burned their homes, their livelihoods, and their heritage to the ground. He also firmly repudiated the existence of climate change, even denying that the Amazon was a crucial source of oxygen and a vital carbon sink for the entire world. According to Jair Bolsonaro, scientists invented climate change specifically to undermine his success as a president.

A year after his heavily criticized speech before the UN convention, Bolsonaro’s pre-recorded video for the 2020 convention continues to promote his policies as “the best environmental regulations on the planet”, even as all measurements of deforestation, wildfires, and carbon emissions indicate that Brazil is drifting further and further towards the point of no return.

In the midst of this multifaceted crisis tearing through indigenous communities, the President actively engages in a campaign of denial and misinformation. He refuses to acknowledge the extent of the catastrophe, regarding both the virus and the wildfires, and therefore, aims to avoid accountability for his failure to support the citizens that his office obliges him to support. Underpinning this refusal to face reality is the belief that he can ignore the struggles of indigenous communities with absolute impunity.

Since the rise of far-right wing, populist leaders like President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the global tolerance for deliberate misinformation has dramatically increased. Bolsonaro feels empowered to blatantly deny reality and swerve his responsibilities because his fellow conservative politicians have experienced relative success in the tactic of avoiding reality in order to avoid accountability. 

Like Trump and Johnson, Bolsonaro relies on a cohort of fervent far-right supporters to sustain him through storms of public outcry, both domestically and abroad. In response to their leader’s failure to protect and support their needs as citizens, Brazilians have taken to the streets, as have Americans and Brits and citizens from around the world who feel abandoned by the people whose job it is to serve. 

The voice of the people can only overpower the voices of misinformation, ignorance, and apathy with sustained, collective action. Indigenous communities have begun this daunting task, continuing to self-advocate and protest the injustices of Bolsonaro’s leadership, but the international community must do more to support them. Native Amazonians are dying at disproportionate and preventable rates, and so is their home.

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Since Ecuador holds the third most important reserve of oil in South America, China also had much to gain from the establishment of this relationship. However this article seeks to look beyond the surface of this political relationship, focusing on understanding how the exchange of money and trade of oil has impacted Ecuador and, most notably, Ecuador’s environment.

China’s investment in the growth of Ecuador’s infrastructure has come at a critical cost. The national growth of Ecuador’s economy has led to severe environmental degradation within the South American country. According to The Ministry of the Environment Ecuador had 31.2 million acres of native forest in 2016; by 2018 it had lost 288,760 acres. Between 1990 and 2018, just over 4.9 million acres of forest were lost in Ecuador. Santiago Ron, an Ecuadorian biologist and professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, says that “for its size, Ecuador has the highest annual deforestation rate of any country in the Western Hemisphere, “

While Ecuador has received monetary support from China in the form of loans, these loans have left Ecuador $19 billion in debt. In addition to the debt, China’s aggressive quest for foreign oil has strained tensions with Ecuador. According to records by Reuters, China is pursuing a  “near-monopoly control of crude exports from an OPEC nation, Ecuador.” Now Ecuador heavily relies on funding by the Chinese, to cover 61% of the government’s $6.2 billion in financing needs. This, however, isn’t a donation, but rather in return, China can claim up to 90% of Ecuador’s oil shipments in the coming years. However, over time Ecuador’s petroleum has become insufficient in paying the debt to China. In its efforts to pay back the debt, Ecuador has been pushed to exploit their land through mining and more invasive oil extraction.

To accommodate China’s payment demands, Ecuador has continuously been pushing their own limits. Indigenous populations, such as the Amazonian ethnic group Shur, have been forced to leave their lands so that mines and electrical transmission towers can be developed and then used to pay back China with resources. In San Marcos, 26 Shur families were evicted from their homes and the surrounding areas — a total of 116 people were forced to leave, including 52 children and teenagers. These families not only lost their homes, but their cultivation areas. Group migration because of land exploitation has caused drastic pollution and deforestation. Land that once was home to large amounts of biodiversity has now become a site for an open-pit mega-mine known as the Mirador project.

Some other ways in which Ecuador has sought to fulfill its payments has been by cutting national costs elsewhere. Ecuador decided to save money by building their own dam and generating low-cost electricity. However, this dam was built and financed by China, and can be found lying alongside the active volcano Reventador. According to Ecuador’s Minister of Energy Carlos Perez, the dam was, “supposed to christen Ecuador’s vast ambitions, solve its energy needs and help lift the small South American country out of poverty.” Carlos Perez recognizes that “China took advantage of Ecuador,” and that “the strategy of China is clear. They take economic control of countries.” In addition to the many scandals that have accompanied this project, the dam only runs at half capacity and is an impending liability to the environment and to the Ecuadorian government. Construction of the dam was rushed, with insufficient trials and incomplete research conducted that led to its ultimate inefficiency. The dam’s existence has deteriorated the local environment by drying up the nearby Coca River and eliminating an entire aquatic ecosystem.

While these have proven to be detrimental aspects of the current state of Ecuador-China relations, the reality is that Ecuador continues to remain reliant on China as a commercial and political partner. 

Therefore Chinese encroachment on Ecuador’s maritime borders have not been legitimately respected. Because Ecuador is heavily dependent on China, they do not have the basis to implement harsh punishments on Chinese violations. Ecuador switched from a dependency on the United States and multilateral organizations, to another dependency on China. The concern is that Ecuador didn’t learn anything from its previous experiences, and is still dependent on the old commodities export model.

In July 2019, the Ecuadorian Navy was put on “high alert” by the Defense Minister, as they spotted significantly large Chinese fleets approaching Galapagos Island and threatening maritime boundaries. In 2017, Chinese vessels ”were captured in the Galapagos Marine Reserve carrying 300 tons of marine wildlife.” Among them, Fu Yuan Yu Leng 999 was caught with illegally obtained sharks among them endangered whale sharks and hammerhead sharks. While China proposed a ban on fishing, they had no incentive to follow through with this proposal. China also strategically placed the prohibition period in the fall months, knowing that their fleets are only present in the summertime. While the Galapagos Island falls under Ecuadorian jurisdiction, Ecuador’s dependence on China has forced them to be docile when handling China’s encroachment. 

It is essential that not only Ecuador but that the world ensures the preservation of Galapagos Island which holds nearly 3,000 marine species among them “humpback whales and sea turtles to giant manta rays and hammerhead sharks.” This is a problem that continues to rise in relevance. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo commented on the matter, saying that, “the People’s Republic of China subsidizes the world’s largest commercial fishing fleet, which routinely violates the sovereign rights and jurisdiction of coastal states, fishes without permission, and overfishes licensing agreements.”

The time has come for Ecuador to make amends with the West and seek allies outside of China. Once this has been done, Ecuador can regain independence and address their disputes and disagreements with China on equal footing, all in an effort to preserve its fragile ecosystem. 

Change must be enacted. Ecuadorian Kichwa indigenous elders call this moment pachakutik, or “time of change.” Reevaluating China-Ecuador relations is an important first step in ending this vicious cycle of poor sustainable development.

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