WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden made his first calls to foreign leaders as commander-in-chief of the United States on Friday, calling Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at a tense time for the relationship between USA with its North American neighbors.
Biden’s appeal to Trudeau came after the Canadian prime minister publicly expressed his disappointment this week at Biden’s decision – one of his first acts as president – to issue an executive order halting the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The long-disputed project was designed to transport about 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta’s tar sands to the Texas Gulf coast, through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.
In his private conversation, Biden told Trudeau that, in issuing the order, he was fulfilling a campaign promise to stop construction of the pipeline, a senior Canadian government official told the Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation between the leaders of the nations.
Biden also spoke to López Obrador on Friday, days after the Mexican president accused the United States Anti-Drug Agency of fabricating drug trafficking charges against the country’s former defense secretary.
While Mexico continues to commit to blocking mass movements of migrants from Central America towards the border with the United States, there is no shortage of potential flashpoints between the two countries.
Mexico demanded the return of former Secretary of Defense, General Salvador Cienfuegos, after he was arrested in Los Angeles in October, threatening to restrain American agents in Mexico if he was not returned. US prosecutors agreed to drop the charges and return Cienfuegos to Mexico.
But Mexico passed a law restricting foreign agents and removing their immunity in any case, and went on to publish the file of the American case against Cienfuegos, from whom Mexican prosecutors quickly cleared of any charges.
López Obrador said in a statement that the conversation with Biden was “friendly and respectful”. The two talked about immigration and Covid-19, among other issues.
Trudeau told reporters ahead of the call on Friday that he would not allow his differences with Biden over the project to become a source of tension in the US-Canada relationship.
“It will not always be a perfect alignment with the United States,” said Trudeau. “This is the case for any president, but we are in a situation where we are much more aligned in values and focus. I am very much looking forward to working with President Biden. “
Biden signed the executive order to halt construction of the pipeline just hours after taking office.
“Leaving the Keystone XL pipeline license in place would not be consistent with my government’s economic and climate imperatives,” said Biden’s executive order.
Critics say cultivation operations increase greenhouse gas emissions and threaten Alberta’s rivers and forests. On the side of the United States, environmentalists have expressed concerns that the pipeline – which would cross the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the largest underground freshwater deposits in the world – is too risky.
But supporters of the project say it would create thousands of jobs on both sides of the border.
The project was proposed in 2008, and the pipeline has become emblematic of the tensions between economic development and containing fossil fuel emissions that are causing climate change. The Obama administration rejected him, but President Donald Trump revived him and was a big supporter. Construction has started.
Biden and Trudeau also discussed prospects for Canada to receive the Covid-19 vaccine from the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in Kalamazoo, Michigan, according to a second senior Canadian government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.
Canada is receiving all of its Pfizer doses from a Pfizer facility in Puurs, Belgium, but Pfizer has informed Canada that it will not receive any doses in the next week and will receive 50% less than expected in the next three weeks. Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford has publicly asked Biden to share a million doses taken at Pfizer’s Michigan facility.
The US federal government has an agreement with Pfizer under which the first 100 million doses of the vaccine produced in the USA will be owned by the US government and will be distributed in the USA. Anita Anand, the Canadian federal procurement minister, said the doses that are emerging from the Michigan plant are for distribution in the United States.
The two leaders also spoke extensively on trade, defense and climate issues. Trudeau also raised the cases of two Canadians arrested in China in apparent retaliation for the arrest of a top Huawei executive, who was arrested in Canada on an extradition request from the United States, according to the prime minister’s office.