Canada to participate in ‘Three Amigos’ summit in Mexico City. Here’s what to know – National | 24CA News

Familiar North American irritants — U.S. protectionism, intransigence on continental commerce, irregular migration — return to the fore this week because the so-called “Three Amigos” meet for a trilateral summit in Mexico City.

Canada had an automotive axe to grind with the U.S. the final time Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, President Joe Biden and Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador all gathered on the White House in November 2021.

At this North American Leaders’ Summit, nevertheless, the specter of an “America First” method to energizing the electric-vehicle business has abated, not like the worsening migration disaster Biden faces on the U.S.-Mexico border.

That probably means Trudeau might want to increase his voice a bit to get Biden’s consideration on issues of particular concern to Canada, mentioned Scotty Greenwood, chief govt of the Canadian American Business Council.

“I think Canada has to try really hard to be as relevant as it wants to be in a conversation with the United States — there isn’t an automatic reason that Canada is front burner the way there is with Mexico,” Greenwood mentioned.

“The normal diplomatic recitation of the issues we’d like to discuss together, combined with proximity and history, isn’t enough in the current context for Canada to be where it wants to be, in my judgment.”

Canada, in fact, has a vested curiosity in lots of the points more likely to dominate the agenda of the summit, which will get underway in earnest on Tuesday.

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Like the U.S., it too is a vacation spot nation for unlawful migrants from Latin America, and is simply as wanting to stanch the northerly stream of lethal fentanyl. And Trudeau’s Liberal authorities clearly shares the Biden administration’s ambitions in the case of combating local weather change.

But in the case of fostering the expansion of the essential minerals business, a cornerstone of the burgeoning marketplace for electrical automobiles, the U.S. expects Canada to be doing much more than it already is, Greenwood mentioned.

“The rhetoric is good, but the actual progress — the actual commitment to demonstrated policies that accelerate the development of critical minerals — Canada has to do much more and much more quickly in order to make an impression in the U.S.”

Gary Doer, the previous Manitoba premier who served as Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2009 to 2016, mentioned he expects the difficulty of resilient, dependable provide chains extra broadly will likely be a dominant theme of the summit.

“With all the supply chain issues going on in the world, and the opportunity of North America to improve the North American neighborhood supply chains, that’ll be a fairly important item,” Doer mentioned.

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“The more certainty we can have on the supply chain, the more certainty we can have in the economy. That’s a really important part of dealing with inflation: when there’s uncertainty, you have greater costs.”

Biden and Trudeau will maintain their very own bilateral assembly Tuesday earlier than the beginning of the summit’s formal agenda, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed Friday.

Biden, who’s travelling south this weekend to go to the Mexico-U.S. border upfront of the summit, will maintain an analogous one-on-one assembly with Lopez Obrador on Monday, Kirby mentioned.

“Our partnership with Canada and Mexico is crucial to our economic security, prosperity, democratic stability and of course, migration management,” Kirby informed a White House press briefing.

“This North American Leaders’ Summit will give us all an opportunity to strengthen those partnerships and advance shared priorities for North America.”

Biden also can count on an earful from each neighbours on his unapologetic political messaging on Buy American _ the long-standing doctrine of preferring home suppliers over these of even essentially the most neighbourly allies.

Canada could have averted disaster when Biden’s electric-vehicle tax credit had been amended to incorporate North American producers, however the incentives now in place nonetheless pose challenges, mentioned Louise Blais, a retired Canadian diplomat who served as ambassador to the UN and consul common in Atlanta.

“I’m expecting both the Mexican president and the Canadian prime minister to raise this issue with the president to say, ‘Look, we need to have a more continental approach to some of these policies,”’ Blais informed an professional panel Friday hosted by the Americas Society and the Council of the Americas.

“It’s in the interest of the United States, at the end of the day, to get those pieces of legislation right so that they they really do boost prosperity across the United States.”

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Kirby spelled out an bold Biden administration agenda for the summit that made clear that points particular to the U.S.-Mexico dynamic, together with irregular migration and the stream of unlawful medication, would dominate the conferences.

Biden’s Sunday go to to the southern border is his first as president, one thing his political critics have been clamouring for since his inauguration in 2021.

It follows a recent crackdown on unlawful migrants from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, on prime of current restrictions towards Venezuelan migrants, that goals to forestall the influence of a doable Supreme Court determination to finish Title 42, a Trump-era public-health measure that enables the U.S. to show away asylum-seekers.

At the identical time, the U.S. will welcome 30,000 new immigrants a month from all 4 international locations over the following two years, offered they’re eligible to work and enter the nation legally.

All three international locations may also need to speak in regards to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and the a number of disputes which have arisen round it since turning into legislation in 2020.

The U.S. has points with how Canada’s supply-managed dairy market continues to disclaim American producers truthful entry to clients north of the border. The U.S. additionally says Mexico is unfairly favouring home power suppliers. And each Mexico and Canada say the U.S. isn’t taking part in truthful in the case of the way it defines overseas content material in its automotive provide chains.

But commerce disputes have their very own channels beneath the phrases of the settlement, recognized in Canada as CUSMA, mentioned Brian Nichols, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.

In a briefing Friday on the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., Nichols additionally expressed optimism about an ongoing dispute between Canada and the U.S. over the trusted-traveller program often known as Nexus.

Enrolment centres in Canada stay closed as a result of the U.S. customs officers who employees them need the identical authorized protections which can be afforded to colleagues on the Canada-U.S. border or in Canadian airports.

“The issue with Nexus is one that we hope that we can solve, and I think we’re making important progress,” he mentioned. “It’s important for both our countries, and I’m optimistic that this will be resolved.”

Biden additionally has but to go to Canada in particular person since taking workplace _ a long-standing bilateral custom that usually comes shortly after a presidential inauguration, however which was short-circuited in 2021 by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This week’s conferences might present recent readability on when Biden’s long-promised journey north _ confirmed over the summer time, however interrupted once more when the president himself examined constructive _ may lastly happen.