Embassy - November 6, 2008
by Jeff Davis
FEATURE
Canada Likely Low on New President's To-Do List
(Original news clip can be found at
http://www.embassymag.ca/page/view/todo_list-11-6-2008)
WASHINGTON—Experts here predict the election of Barack Obama to the presidency will bring sweeping changes to American foreign policy, but for now, at least, Canada remains fairly low on the priority list.
Mr. Obama has made many promises during the campaign that cut to the heart of the issues affecting Americans most. Now, experts agree, the president-elect has a laundry list of very pressing issues that must be dealt with before the bilateral relationship with Canada comes to the fore.
In the broadest sense, American foreign policy experts foresee Obama adopting a generally collaborative and multilateral approach to the world.
David Biette, director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center, said Mr. Obama would certainly be "more multilateral than Bush," and that he would be less "suspect about the UN" than his predecessor.
"Obama has already shown that he is listening and wants to reach out to other countries," he said. Despite this, however, Mr. Biette predicted the new president will likely not completely embrace the United Nations in as fulsome a way as Canada has in the past.
Others speculated that Mr. Obama's background as a community organizer means he will transfer his generally collaborative approach to foreign affairs.
"His early political experience was in community development," said Dwight Mason of the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies. "That means getting all various and disparate people together and pointed somewhere. That's a very local thing, but it says something about his viewpoint and skills."
In terms of when Canada will be affected by the arrival of Mr. Obama, experts agreed that day is still a ways away.
Scotty Greenwood of the Canadian-American Business Council said bilateral relations with Canada are likely far from the top priority.
"I think priorities are going to be things like do we close Guantanamo Bay? What do we do about Iran's nuclear ambitions? What do we do about North Korea? What do we do about the financial crisis? And how do we get the troops out of Iraq?" she said.
"I can list 100 things that come up before he takes a look" at bilateral relations with Canada, she added.
Mr. Biette expressed a similar opinion.
"The U.S. administration pays attention to problems, and Canada is not a problem," he said. "It's a great relationship that works well."
And though the issue of reopening negotiations on NAFTA was discussed in the primaries, it seems this too is a long way off.
Judy Bradt, who worked at the Canadian Embassy in Washington for 15 years before starting a consulting firm in the city, said NAFTA is simply not a priority.
"I think that the Democrats...have so many things on their agenda that I can't imagine that opening up NAFTA again is a sufficiently high priority, that we're going to see anything happen about that anytime soon," she said. "There is a tremendous focus on the economy, fixing the financial meltdown and healthcare."
Larry Diamond, a professor of political science and sociology at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said Mr. Obama will likely face little pressure to follow through on his NAFTA pledge.
[Mr. Obama] has obviously laid down a concern [about NAFTA] during the campaign, but I don't think he's going to be under massive pressure to negotiate," he said. "I think it was sincere, and I'm not saying he won't be under any pressure, but I don't think it will be the most important thing on his agenda when we're in an financial crisis that is so obviously emanating from other sources."
Mr. Mason said that this talk of reopening NAFTA, if you read between the lines, was all about Mexico, not about Canada.
After all, he said, Canada is not the root of many of America's economic problems, and it is economies like China that should fear a protectionist backlash.
"Clearly the economy has everyone here worried in terms of the loss of manufacturing jobs, but we're not losing manufacturing jobs to Canada," Mr. Mason said. "In fact, Canada and the U.S. are in exactly the same canoe when it comes to losing manufacturing jobs.
"That's why I don't see any real honest protectionism with Canada when you actually look at the data and think about it," he added.
Experts also doubted that Mr. Obama would make any rapid moves to ease security restrictions along the border with Canada, a hallmark of the Bush years and a frustration to many Canadians.
Mr. Biette said he sees no changes to American border policy coming down the pipes, particularly because the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which comes into force next year, is a law passed by Congress.
Mr. Biette pointed out that in the United States, unlike Canada, the executive has limited powers and cannot simply strike down existing laws.
Plus, he added, Americans don't necessarily see the need to change their border policy.
"I don't think people see enough need to change it, because people still believe in secure borders," he said. "Just because we have a new president, I don't think it changes how we see our borders."
Mr. Mason agreed.
"I think the harder border is here to stay," he said. "The U.S. position is 'We really need to know who's coming over the border.'"
New Sour Issues?
Meanwhile, some Republicans think the new president could usher in an era of rocky relations with Canada on a series of issues that had previously stayed below the radar.
Chris Berardini, chief of staff to Republican Representative Henry Brown and one of the co-chairs of the Congressional Friends of Canada Caucus, predicted that Mr. Obama's political agenda vis-à-vis Canada could be influenced by the strong support his campaign received from environmental groups and the United States Humane Society.
"The Humane Society is a very strong force, much stronger than in Canada, and they tend to overwhelmingly be supporters of Obama," he said, adding there will likely be an "increasing amount of pressure on the Obama administration to condemn or place sanctions on Canada for the seal hunt."
He also said the oilsands of Alberta and Saskatchewan could be adversely affected, "because it's being perceived, rightly or wrongly as an unclean fuel."
(Original news clip can be found at
http://www.embassymag.ca/page/view/todo_list-11-6-2008)