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.

Pierre Elliot Trudeau delivered those tongue-in-cheek remarks in the spring of 1969 while addressing the Press Club in Washington, D.C.  Although there is a different, younger Trudeau currently residing in the Prime Minister’s official residence, this image of Canada-US relations remains as accurate as ever.

It is a fact of life for Canadian administrations that they must pursue policy agendas that are sufficiently attuned to the occasionally sudden changes of heart – the “twitches and grunts” – of the US body politic. The reason is that there is simply so much at stake. Canada and the US share over $1.4 trillion in bilateral trade and investment annually. Roughly 300,000 people freely cross the border every day. At 5,525 miles, the two nations preside over the longest undefended border on the planet. And while the closing of this border for trade purposes might disrupt elements of the US economy, it would without a doubt devastate Canada’s, which sends 76 percent of its exports to the US.

Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney put it this way: “[I]f the elephant rolls over, you are a dead man.”

Following President Donald Trump’s election win in November 2016, Canada was surprised to find that its relationship with its southern neighbor had suddenly become more challenging. Now, as it quickly became apparent, Justin Trudeau’s administration was lying with a considerably grumpier elephant. A whole spate of tensions flared up almost immediately. Trump’s immigration and climate policies were clearly at odds with Trudeau’s. The NATO alliance was being called into question, with Canada’s military spending (or lack thereof) surfacing as a possible pressure point. Most troubling to Canada were Trump’s off-handed threats regarding pulling out of NAFTA, which was, in his words, “one of the worst deals ever made by any country.”

The Trudeau administration responded by going on the offensive, implementing what has been likened to an all-out diplomatic blitz. Even before President-elect Trump’s inauguration, Canada’s Prime Minister reshuffled his cabinet with a view to putting in place a team best able to address the new reality of Canada-US relations. This included promoting Chrystia Freeland to be Canada’s point-person, its Trump czar, in her new role as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

It is said that politics makes strange bedfellows. The paranoia wrought by Trump’s tweets and other pronouncements have also brought into Trudeau’s fold no less than Brian Mulroney and his then-ambassador to the US, Derek Burney – the Canadian architects of NAFTA and scourges of the first Prime Minster Trudeau who opposed NAFTA at the time – to lobby American elites on Canada’s behalf and to supply Minister Freeland and her officials with key contacts in the White House. Understanding the far-reaching political and economic implications of the relationship, Trudeau reached out beyond party lines and has done a laudable job of cutting through typical partisan pettiness.

Trudeau also commissioned chief-of-staff Katie Telford and principal secretary Gerald Butt to build rapport with key Trump aides such as his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, then-political strategist Stephen Bannon and chief-of-staff Reince Priebus and economic adviser Gary Cohn.  Whereas previous Canadian and US administrations discussed trade and other diplomatic initiatives through formal channels, such formal negotiations are now supplemented by widespread informal talks.

Hardly a day has gone by since without some Canadian envoy in Washington DC or in State capitals preaching Canada’s case on trade and Canada-US cooperation generally. In May of this year, Minster Freeland reported that, “since Trump’s inauguration, Canadian representatives had met 115 members of Congress and 35 state governors or lieutenant governors, in addition to holding 235 meetings with other U.S. officials.”

It would be disingenuous not to mention what, as many in Canada believe, has probably done the most to endear Trudeau (and Canada) to Mr. Trump: wooing his beloved daughter, Ivanka. Trump has made it no secret that showing respect for his family – and Ivanka specifically – is a vital component of building a rapport with the man himself. No surprise, then, that Trudeau has gone to great, highly publicized lengths to solicit the support and admiration of the First Daughter, even taking her out on Broadway this past March.

Save for the occasional grumbling about Ottawa’s treatment of its softwood lumber and dairy industries, Trudeau’s approach seems to be finding success within the Trump administration. This is a fact that has undoubtedly impressed many other bewildered US allies, several of whom have since made inquires to Ottawa in search of Trudeau’s magic formula.

But with NAFTA negotiations beginning to take place and the possibility of Trump abruptly changing course becoming an ever-looming political reality, the debate over the Trudeau administration’s policy is heating up. National Post political correspondent John Ivison adequately framed the mounting frustration in Canada when he questioned, “How can any government strike a deal with a president whose policy is America first, middle and last?”

This attitude, while not far from the truth, will prove to be counterproductive if it is adopted by Trudeau administration officials. There is little evidence to support the notion that allies provoking or alienating President Trump has lead to desirable outcomes for either party. Canadians should know that putting pride aside can be the noble thing to do when the stakes are so high.

Throughout the years, Canada itself has been no stranger to managing successful working relationships with elephants of all proclivities. Fortunately, the importance of the bond between these two nations – economically, militarily, and in terms of global influence – has always allowed for cooler heads to prevail. Here’s to hoping that this singularly fickle elephant won’t break the pattern.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.