what is your recommendation for this decision of America for Canada?

This is a government that does not take its own national defense seriously, so why should anyone take it seriously? President Joe Biden is unlikely to do Canada a good turn just because we treated him to a nice dinner five years ago.

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.

“We’re more like family even than allies. I mean that sincerely,” he said – repeatedly.

But Biden has not walked his fine talk. A preoccupation with domestic politics has seen him adopt a protectionist agenda, which contravenes the trade agreement Trudeau hammered out with Trump and the Mexican government.

His administration is proposing to increase U.S. content requirements under the Buy American program, and its Build Back Better legislation includes incentives for electric vehicles that are already re-shaping the automobile manufacturing industry on this continent. The proposal is to offer incentives worth a maximum of US$12,500 per car on new EVs made in the United States using union labor. (Canada’s federal incentive tops out at $5,000, although a number of provinces have their own offers.)

Trudeau is in Washington to attend the North American Leaders’ Summit with Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, the first such Three Amigos meeting since 2016. There will be a bilateral meeting with Biden as part of what is billed as an attempt to “deepen economic co-operation and security partnerships.”

After the turbulent Trump years, Biden pledged to lower tensions with America’s trading partners and allies. Yet the U.S. president has proven a fair-weather friend.

U.S. electric vehicle tax credit could become 'dominant issue,' Freeland says ahead of Three Amigos summit

Trudeau is set to echo the comments of ministers Mélanie Joly and Mary Ng, that the EV incentives are “inconsistent” with USMCA. Mexico is also urging that the EV proposal be brought into line with the hard-won trade agreement.

Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, once called Trump’s proposal to put a 25 percent tariff on Canadian autos “the car-pocalypse.” But he said Biden’s proposal to lower prices by 33 percent for U.S-built EVs is even worse. “It’s the same principle but a different medium – and it’s contrary to the WTO and USMCA.”

The implications are already apparent. The Toronto Star reported last week that 3,000 jobs at the Chrysler plant in Brampton, Ont., will be at risk when it stops making the Dodge Charger and Dodge Challenger brands in 2023, with the manufacture of the replacement electric vehicles set to move to Belvidere, Illinois, to take advantage of the U.S. domestic subsidy.

Stellaris, the company forged by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group, is contemplating building a battery plant in Ontario or Quebec. But Volpe said he imagines that decision will be affected by the same dynamics influencing the siting of vehicle assembly plants. Volpe’s proposal to resolve the problem is one that Trudeau is likely to suggest to Biden – namely, to harmonize EV incentives with the trade agreement by dumping the U.S-only clause and replacing it with USMCA signatories, which would bring both Canada and Mexico under the U.S. protectionist umbrella. To counter the union clause, Canada could suggest the adoption of the labor value content provision in USMCA, which states that if manufacturers pay less than US$16 an hour, they must source 40 percent of their content from plants that do.

Canada does have reserves of the critical minerals like lithium and cobalt needed in battery production. But nobody believes that Trudeau would dare threaten to withhold Canada’s mineral wealth.

To ask Biden to reverse himself on an issue that is a winner with blue-collar voters is a big ask of a president who has shown few signs of sentimental attachment to his liberal kindred spirit in Ottawa.

Perrin Beatty, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and a former defense minister, said we’re witnessing an evolution in the relationship with the White House. “It used to be special – now it’s transactional,” he said. “It’s overlooked in Canada but the Democrats are the party of protectionism. It was Trump who changed the Republican Party.”

Trudeau will meet with U.S. President Joe Biden and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at the White House on Thursday. There may be good domestic reasons to amend the bill as it’s written. The Administration hopes to pass it through the House of Representatives in the coming days but the Senate will prove a tougher sell, given West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin is opposed (his state hosts a non-unionized Toyota plant.)

But the president is unlikely to do Canada a good turn just because we treated him to a nice dinner five years ago.

Andrew Leslie, the retired lieutenant general, and former Liberal MP was involved in the trade talks that concluded with USMCA. He said there is a certain lack of respect in Washington for Trudeau. “In my opinion, the two men (Trudeau and Biden) don’t enjoy a very close relationship,” he said. Nor is there high regard for this country’s commitment to its own defense. “They don’t see us as a nation that is serious about defense capabilities, or truly committed to continental defense with the U.S.,” Leslie said.

As he and other senior military figures in Canada point out, the first concern of the White House is security.

“We look at the Canada-U.S. relationship through the lens of trade and what’s in it for us. We don’t necessarily gain advantage from that,” said Mark Norman, the former vice-chief of the defense staff.

He said he would not be surprised if Biden brings up Canada’s defense spending, this country’s position on China, and NORAD renewal.

“The bottom line is that this recurring back and forth is likely wearing thin with our neighbors,” said Norman On NORAD, Harjit Sajjan, the former defense minister, and Lloyd James Austin, the U.S. secretary of defense, issued a joint statement in August agreeing to replace the obsolete North Warning System patchwork of long and short-range radar installation with more advanced technology “as soon as possible”. The old system was designed to give advanced warning of approaching Russian bombers, not ballistic missiles. The two sides agreed to build a network of sensors from seafloor to outer space and develop the capability to defeat evolving aerospace threats to North America.

But it was a typically Canadian undertaking – an open-ended pledge, without a firm commitment or cash, attached.

The Liberal election platform also included a promise to upgrade the NWS. But crucially, no money was allocated to build a system that would detect low-flying cruise missiles and drones.

James Fergusson, deputy director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba, estimated that a so-called “over the horizon” system would cost up to $11-billion, cost-shared 60:40 with the U.S., which would pay the lion’s share. He called it “the most immediate and pressing defense requirement for North American defense.”

But the government has not budgeted to spend any money on NWS modernization in the next 20 years, despite having allocated $143 billion on various pet programs in budget 2021 and a further $78 billion in the recent Liberal election platform.

“The current system is out of date and the government needs to do something. But it is not a priority,” said Fergusson.

“It matters to them (the Americans) and it should matter to us,” said Norman.

“Canadians always underestimate how irritated Americans can get with us on this stuff,” said Leslie.

It really is no wonder Biden is ill-disposed to do Canada any favors. In his speech in Ottawa in 2016, he compared the United States to an overbearing big brother. “I really mean it,” he said. What he left unsaid, is that his analogy makes Canada the immature, undependable younger sibling.

It is a fitting comparison. This is a government that does not take its own national defense seriously, so why should anyone take it seriously?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will travel to Washington this week for the first Three Amigos summit in five years — a trilateral meeting with U.S. and Mexican leaders that has been dismissed in the past as high on symbolism and low on substance.

The one-day summit on Thursday comes at a challenging time for the Canada-U.S. relationship.

The election of U.S. President Joe Biden was celebrated by many in Canada as the dawn of a new era in bilateral relations after the fractious four-year term of his predecessor, Donald Trump. During his campaign, Biden promised a return to "normalcy" and better relations with U.S. allies; the revival of the once-dormant Three Amigos gathering is a sign that the Trump-era froideur is over.

But on Biden's watch, a number of new irritants have emerged. Biden, more beholden to progressive elements in the Democratic Party than past presidents, has made climate policy a priority to appeal to green activists. Canada's energy sector is paying a price.

Canada battling U.S. protectionism, anti-oil agenda

In the first week of his presidency, Biden canceled permits for the Keystone XL pipeline, dealing a multi-billion dollar blow to Alberta's oilpatch.

He has done little to stop Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, from trying to shut down Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline — a crucial artery that supplies oil products and natural gas to power huge portions of the Canadian economy. Experts agree its closure would be devastating to Canada — a threat to the continued operation of Toronto's Pearson International Airport and the free flow of fossil fuels to other critical industries.

A spokesperson for Biden said this week the White House is awaiting a review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before deciding whether to wade into a debate over the future of the controversial pipeline. Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan — who served as the natural resources minister until recently — has said the line's continued operation is "non-negotiable."

While Canada lifted land border restrictions on non-essential travel this summer, the Biden administration only did away with its months-long ban on cross-border travel last week. Non-stop flights from Moscow and Beijing were arriving at New York's JFK airport while fully vaccinated Canadian travelers were turned away at land crossings in the states of Maine, New York, and Washington — disrupting business, tourism, and family reunification.

Legislation before the Democratic congress also threatens trade relations between two of the world's largest economies. Congress has drafted a bill, the Build Back Better Act, that would offer sizeable tax credits worth up to $12,500 to the buyers of new electric vehicles — as long as those cars and trucks are manufactured in the U.S.

That tax measure would be a devastating development for the Canadian automotive sector, which is trying to attract new investment as the industry transitions away from internal combustion engines.

Biden's massive infrastructure bill, which he is set to sign into law tomorrow, is littered with Buy America provisions that could leave Canadian companies out of the competition for contracts potentially worth billions of dollars in government business — provisions that undermine the new NAFTA signed by the three countries just a few years ago.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has identified this protectionist push as a significant problem but Canadian protests have so far fallen on deaf ears.

Speaking Sunday in an interview on Rosemary Barton Live, Canadian ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman reiterated the government's position that the potential tax credit could violate the North American free-trade pact.

"We're still working hard to make sure that all of the relevant decision-makers realize that this isn't good for U.S. jobs, it isn't good for our shared commitments to environmental protection and EV transitions, and, frankly, it runs in the face of the commitments we've just made under CUSMA," she told CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton.

David MacNaughton, who served as Canada's ambassador to the U.S. during the Trump administration, said that while the former reality TV star-turned-politician generated a tremendous amount of "unpredictability" in the Oval Office, it was still possible for Canada to advance its agenda because Trump "didn't have any particular ideology. In fact, he had no real ideology at all."

"The problem you face with President Biden is you have some really comforting words about allies but you have, within his own party, and his own domestic agenda, some real ideologically protectionist elements which are going to cause problems in terms of our mutual economic interest. We're already seeing that," MacNaughton told CBC News.

"I think the problem with the Democrats is that a lot of them just don't really believe in global trade and really would prefer everything be done in the U.S. It's always better when you have somebody who's Sympatico [rather] than someone who's constantly railing against you, but it doesn't mean it's going to be easy."

The Three Amigos gathering, formally known as the North American Leaders' Summit, is not the best forum to address Canada-U.S. bilateral issues because of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's presence, said Christopher Sands, director of the Wilson Center's Canada Institute.

The Mexican leader is not particularly concerned about the future of Windsor, Ont. as a center for car manufacturing, or if a major source of Quebec's national gas supply is in danger of going offline, he said.

"It's like, 'Yeah, we want to talk to you but not with the other guy in the room,'" Sands told CBC News. "Canada feels like an afterthought.

"But it's the Americans trying to economize the president's time and focus because there are some similarities on things like borders, North American competitiveness, and economic issues with both Canada and Mexico. Just for efficiency, they're grouped together. It's the way the Americans think."

The only major trilateral accomplishment of Trump's term — the renegotiation of the new NAFTA, the Canada-U.S.-Mexican Agreement (CUSMA) — was done without formal Three Amigos summits, Sands said.

But despite the format's shortcomings, it's still a chance to get these leaders around a table talking about issues of common interest, he added.

According to the Prime Minister's Office, Trudeau will use the short time he has before Biden to press these bilateral concerns and "discuss shared priorities and find North American solutions to the challenges of today and tomorrow."

Coming off the COP26 summit in Glasgow, Trudeau is also eager to discuss the environment as the world struggles to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels. López Obrador skipped COP26 and Mexico, a major oil producer, has rebuffed renewable energy projects.

"Our countries are committed to providing a better future for our people, including creating more middle-class jobs, building a cleaner economy and tackling climate change, and finishing the fight against COVID- 19. I look forward to meeting with my counterparts to discuss a new path for our partnerships at a time when the world is facing complex global challenges," Trudeau said in a media statement.

In its own media statement, the White House pitched the summit as a way to "strengthen" the "partnership" and "revitalize our leadership and respond to a widening range of regional and global challenges." The statement says that Biden — doubtless with an eye on domestic politics — will also use the meeting to discuss "a regional vision for migration," an issue of little relevance to Canada.

The first formal North American leaders' meeting was held in 1956 when then-U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower gathered his continental counterparts — Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent and the Mexican leader, Adolfo Ruiz Cortines — as the Cold War standoff with the Soviet Union was starting to heat up.

Canadian ambivalence

Canadian ambivalence at the time about this trilateral dynamic was reflected in a piece in the Chicago Tribune.

On the occasion of the first-ever Canada-U.S.-Mexico leaders' meeting in West Virginia, the newspaper reported that "Canada traditionally has kept aloof from Latin America in trade matters, in the belief that it can deal better with Washington on a bilateral basis."

The focus of the 1956 summit was on how the three countries could "develop democratic processes" at a time when communism was on the march in the developing world. The U.S., seen by some as an imperial power, wanted to recruit "smaller countries like Canada and Mexico in offering a helping hand to countries that have been determined to remain neutral in the 'Cold War,'" according to an account of the summit in the New York Times.

The leaders' summits were held sporadically in the decades that followed. U.S. President George W. Bush created the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) in 2005, a regular forum for the three countries to meet to cooperate on security and economic issues.

The SPP was the subject of much criticism: left-wing groups in Canada said they feared it would be the first step toward a North American union, while right-wing activists in the U.S. fretted about a possible spike in the number of people crossing between the three countries. Bush's successor, President Barack Obama, scrapped the SPP but kept the leaders' meeting portion.

"They've always been more important to the Americans. Stephen Harper didn't put much of a priority on this. Canada skipped hosting it a couple of times," Sands said. "Now, the Biden administration has put great stock in the return to normal."

"It's not a longstanding tradition but having civilized conversations with your neighbors is pretty normal compared to what we've seen recently. Is it absolutely necessary? No, we can live without them, we did for a long time and we did just recently. But I think what makes this important is the U.S. signaling it wants to have this conversation and it's bringing it together on relatively short notice."

Just as Eisenhower gathered his Canadian and Mexican counterparts while the Soviet Union was flexing its muscles in the 1950s, Biden is hosting this year's summit as the Western world grows increasingly concerned about China. Biden will speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping before Trudeau and Lopez Obrador arrive in D.C.

"It's pretty clear North America will have to work together to counter its competitor in China and counter the threats in China," said Scotty Greenwood, a former U.S. diplomat and an expert in Canada-U.S. relations at Crestview Strategy.

As the U.S. shifts its supply chain away from Asia and an increasingly hostile China, Canada and Mexico will become "extremely relevant" to the American economy, she said.

Mexico's low-wage labor and Canada's critical minerals and natural resources could help the U.S. "decouple" from its continued reliance on China, she said. "I think the outline is there for really important North American cooperation."