summit

Tuesday February 23, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday February 23, 2021

Biden to meet virtually with Trudeau on Tuesday in first meeting with a foreign leader

U.S. President Joe Biden’s first official meeting with a foreign head of government will be a virtual encounter on Tuesday with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

January 26, 2021

“The president will highlight the strong and deep partnership between the United States and Canada as neighbours, friends and NATO allies,” the White House said in a statement on Saturday.

The Prime Minister’s Office said meeting agenda items include the COVID-19 pandemic, economic recovery, job creation, maintaining cross-border supply chains, climate change, energy, defence and security, and diversity and inclusion.

The U.S. president’s Keystone XL pipeline cancellation is expected to come up but will not likely be a main focus of the meeting. 

June 24, 2020

The detention of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in China is also expected to be raised by Trudeau, according to a source who spoke to CBC News confidentially.

Biden has already had a series of phone conversations with a number of leaders, starting with Trudeau, shortly after his Jan. 20 inauguration.

The new administration has signalled its desire to improve relationships with traditional American partners by scheduling his first calls, and now a first meeting, with the country’s democratic allies. 

Biden has already had a series of phone conversations with a number of leaders, starting with Trudeau, shortly after his Jan. 20 inauguration.

June 22, 2019

The new administration has signalled its desire to improve relationships with traditional American partners by scheduling his first calls, and now a first meeting, with the country’s democratic allies. 

Conversely, Biden has de-emphasized relationships with non-democratic figures that had been cozier during the Trump era.

The White House has said Biden would not deal directly with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman because the crown prince is not officially the country’s ruler. It also said Biden planned to speak with allied leaders before figures such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, though he did eventually talk to Putin in the second week of his presidency. (CBC) 

 

Saturday August 24, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 24, 2019

Will Trump blow up the G7 summit?

May 24, 2017

The biggest question clouding this weekend’s G7 summit in France is whether the President of the United States will blow it up.

It is a measure of the gulf between America and its allies and of how President Donald Trump has imposed his disruptive character on the world that everyone in Biarritz is bracing for a presidential eruption.

Given the President’s brazen, erratic behavior and mood in the last few days, the idea that he could repeat his tantrum and early departure at the last G7 summit in Canada last year cannot be ruled out. After all, he just pulled out of a state visit to Denmark because it refused to discuss selling Greenland.

Trump frequently flings vitriol across the Atlantic, criticizing foreign leaders who have spent the past two-and-a-half years trying, usually unsuccessfully, to work out how to handle him. His behavior is a promise kept to voters who believe that America’s friends have long taken advantage of its power and security guarantees.

Last month, for instance, he blasted French President Emmanuel Macron’s “foolishness” over a digital services tax that hit US companies and vowed to impose tariffs on French wine.

November 14, 2017

Anticipating trouble from Trump, Macron has abandoned the summit’s regular communique in an effort to take the focus off the disagreements set to rumble in the French surfing resort.

The G7, a group of rich democracies that comprise Britain, France, Germany, the US, Italy, Japan and Canada, is exactly the kind of globalized gathering that Trump and his supporters abhor and is in itself almost a rebuke to his America First philosophy.

The President prefers bilateral meetings where he can leverage superior US power, and he believes national sovereignty, not multilateral cooperation, is the foundation of international relations.

Furthermore, Trump’s sharp changes to US foreign policy have opened wide gaps with Europe on climate change, Iran, trade and Britain’s exit from the European Union that preoccupy other leaders.

“What we’re seeing, I think, is the institutionalization of America alone — I think this week we will see President Macron in France attempting to lead the six in a cogent way,” said Heather Conley of the Center for Strategic and International Studies during a conference call previewing the summit.

“The other countries are trying to figure out who takes up the new mantle, and can they hold on either until the US returns to that leadership role, if it will, or are they going to have to survive in these six dynamics without the US.”

June 9, 2018

The spectacle of Trump feuding with foreign leaders — captured at the G7 in Quebec last year inan iconic photograph horrifies his critics and the US foreign policy establishment.

Which is exactly why Trump may see a political benefit in being the disgruntled odd man out at a meeting that some foreign policy analysts have started calling the G7 minus one. (CNN) 

 

Friday June 28, 2019

June 28, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday June 28, 2019

Canada has ‘broad international coalition’ of support on China file, Freeland says

Canada is fortunate to have assembled a “broad international coalition” of countries who support Canada and believe arbitrary detentions are harmful, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Friday at the G20 summit in Osaka.

August 10, 2018

Freeland, who spoke to reporters alongside her cabinet colleague Finance Minister Bill Morneau, said China has been hearing about the detention of two Canadians from a range of countries, adding that efforts continue here at the summit.

The Prime Minister’s Office said Trudeau had “brief, constructive interactions” with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the first day of meetings at the gathering of major economies.

Video footage from a working lunch on Friday showed the two leaders sitting beside each other but not interacting for several minutes while cameras were positioned on them. Trudeau could be seen making an effort to interact with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, located on his other side.

Trudeau and Xi greeted each other prior to the interaction in the footage, government officials said.

December 5, 2017

Canada has been open for a long time to having conversations with China in addition to discussions unfolding at some diplomatic levels, Freeland said Friday, adding it remains “very, very open” to having conversations at the summit at higher level.

At present, communication has proved to be difficult because the Chinese have indicated they have no interest in speaking with senior officials including Freeland or Trudeau.

To try and get through to China, Canada is now relying heavily on the influence of U.S. President Donald Trump to raise the issue in his own bilateral meeting with the Chinese president on Saturday. The president committed to doing so following a meeting last week with Trudeau in Washington.

Freeland wouldn’t speak to whether there was a specific ask of Trump going into the meeting, adding it is never prudent or appropriate to detail private meetings with partners.

June 22, 2019

In addition to having the backing of the U.S., the prime minister has been trying to establish heightened support as part of a strategy to encourage China to release two Canadians detained in China and to put an end to diplomatic tensions between the two countries.

The arrests of the detained Canadians is largely viewed as retaliation for the December arrest of Chinese high tech executive Meng Wanzhou.

Meng remains under house arrest in Vancouver, where she awaits extradition to the U.S. to face allegations of fraud in violating Iran sanctions.

It is important to see whether Trump does indeed raise the issue of the detentions, how he does that, and whether it has any impact, said Thomas Bernes, a fellow with the Centre for International Governance Innovation, a research think-tank. (CBC News) 

 

Wednesday July 18, 2018


Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday 18, 2018

After Putin summit outrage, Trump says he accepts that Russia meddled

July 16, 2018

After outrage over his failure to hold Russia accountable for interfering in the 2016 U.S. election during a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he accepts the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia did in fact meddle in the election.

At a joint news conference with Putin after a summit in Helsinki on Monday, Trump stunned politicians back home by shying away from criticizing Putin for Moscow’s efforts to undermine the election, contradicting the findings of American intelligence agencies.

After outrage over his failure to hold Russia accountable for interfering in the 2016 U.S. election during a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he accepts the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia did in fact meddle in the election.

April 8, 2017

At a joint news conference with Putin after a summit in Helsinki on Monday, Trump stunned politicians back home by shying away from criticizing Putin for Moscow’s efforts to undermine the election, contradicting the findings of American intelligence agencies.

On Monday, when asked about the meddling, Trump said that while his intelligence officials had said “they think it’s Russia” that Putin “just said it’s not Russia.”

“I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be,” Trump said.

But back at the White House on Tuesday, he told reporters that he meant to say wouldn’t instead of would. He told reporters, “The sentence should have been I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.”

June 7, 2000

As the president said he has “full faith” in the intelligence agencies, the lights in the conference room briefly went out. As they came back on, he said that while he feels strongly that Russia’s actions had no impact on the outcome of the election, he accepts the intelligence community’s conclusion that meddling took place.

But even as he tried to clarify his previous statement and assert support for U.S. intelligence agencies, he left room for other actors to be implicated. (Source: CBC News) 

 

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Monday July 16, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Monday July 16, 2018

McCain: Trump’s meeting with Putin ‘should not move forward’

December 17, 2016

Sen. John McCain praised the Department of Justice’s announcement of the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for interfering in the 2016 presidential election, adding President Donald Trump shouldn’t meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin unless he holds him accountable.

“President Trump must be willing to confront Putin from a position of strength and demonstrate that there will be a serious price to pay for his ongoing aggression towards the United States and democracies around the world,” the Arizona senator said in a statement Friday. “If President Trump is not prepared to hold Putin accountable, the summit in Helsinki should not move forward.”

November 3, 2017

The statement came hours after the Justice Department announced indictments against 12 Russian nationals as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, accusing them of engaging in a “sustained effort” to hack Democrats’ emails and computer networks.

Trump is due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin — who has denied election meddling — in Helsinki on Monday for a summit that includes a one-on-one meeting with only interpreters present.

March 7, 2017

McCain wasn’t the only Republican senator to criticize Putin following the indictments. Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse said in a statement that “all patriotic Americans” should know Putin is not “the President’s buddy.”

“The US intelligence community knows that the Russian government attacked the US,” he said in a statement. “This is not a Republican or a Democrat view — it is simply the reality. All patriotic Americans should understand that Putin is not America’s friend, and he is not the President’s buddy. We should stand united against Putin’s past and planned future attacks against us.” (Source: CNN) 

Comic Strip of the Day, July 14, 2018

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