Biden's time

Canadians watched the Trump era with a mixture of horror, apprehension and amusement, perhaps not all that different from the reaction of the millions of Americans who are not part of Trump's "base". The Trudeau government often seemed to be walking on eggshells in its dealings with Washington, but the Trump period was not without its achievements for the bilateral relationship, most notably the successful negotiation of a new trade agreement to replace the NAFTA treaty. 

Most Canadians, including the Trudeau government, breathed a quiet sigh of relief when Joe Biden won last November's election, and looked forward to calmer times to come. But if we were expecting the Biden era to mark a huge sea-change from Trumpism, we have by and large been disappointed. Oh, sure, the tone in Washington is a bit more civil, but just consider this little list, not all of which is specific to Canada.

• Literally on his first day in office, President Biden moved to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline project, which would have carried Canadian tar sands crude to refineries on the Gulf Coast. And yet, after this blatant piece of virtue signalling, the Biden administration has quietly given the go-ahead for a number of other fossil fuel projects. 
• This very week, as the IPCC releases its doom-and-gloom report on global warming,  we find Biden reacting to rising US gasoline prices by demanding that oil producing countries ramp up their output.  Going all the way back to the 1970s and 1980s, Presidents have regularly hectored OPEC about production levels whenever gas prices have spiked. For a government keen to portray itself as "green", it's not a good look. 
• In time-honoured Democrat fashion, Biden has tightened up "Buy America" provisions for public sector procurement. It will be enlightening to see how much of the business generated by the sprawling "infrastructure" package will be open for bidding by non-US companies, including Canadians..
• Biden has done nothing to smooth down the more abrasive edges of Trump's foreign policies. There is no sign of any return to the slightly less aggressive policy towards Cuba that the Obama administration briefly initiated: Cuba's very survival after six decades of US intransigence is almost miraculous. Policy towards China, at least measured by the tone of the rhetoric from Washington, has become even more confrontational, with experts now openly worried about a spiral towards armed conflict.

In the end, the rest of the world just has to remember that for every US President, regardless of their party label, America always comes first. President Biden may be a whole lot more subtle about it than his predecessor was, but in practical terms, the rest of us still have to be ready to stand up for our own interests.