Biden makes first calls to Canada's Trudeau, Mexico's López Obrador

President Joe Biden's first calls to foreign leaders went to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at a strained moment for the US relationship with its North American neighbours.

Biden's call to Trudeau on Friday came after the Canadian prime minister, this week, publicly expressed disappointment over Biden’s decision to issue an executive order halting construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The long-disputed project was projected to carry some 800,000 barrels of oil a day from the tar sands of Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.

Biden told Trudeau that by issuing the order he was following through on a campaign pledge to stop construction of the pipeline, a senior Canadian government official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation.

The White House said in a statement that Biden acknowledged Trudeau’s disappointment with his Keystone decision.

Biden also spoke with López Obrador on Friday, days after the Mexican president accused the US Drug Enforcement Administration of fabricating drug trafficking charges against the country’s former defence secretary.

While Mexico continues to pledge to block mass movements of Central American migrants toward the US border, there has been no shortage of potential flash points between the two countries. 

Mexico demanded the return of former defence secretary, General Salvador Cienfuegos, after he was arrested in Los Angeles in October, threatening to restrict US agents in Mexico if he wasn’t returned. US prosecutors agreed to drop charges and return Cienfuegos to Mexico. 

However, Mexico passed a law restricting foreign agents and removing their immunity anyway, and went on to publish the US case file against Cienfuegos, 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 discussed immigration and COVID-19, among other issues.

The White House said Biden mentioned “reversing the previous administration’s draconian immigration policies.”

Trudeau told reporters before the call on Friday that he wouldn't’t allow his differences with Biden over the project to become a source of tension in the US-Canada relationship. 

“It’s not always going to be perfect alignment with the United States,” Trudeau said. “That’s the case with any given president, but we’re in a situation where we are much more aligned on 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 he was sworn in.
“Leaving the Keystone XL pipeline permit in place would not be consistent with my administration’s economic and climate imperatives,” Biden’s executive order said.

Critics say the growing operations increase greenhouse gas emissions and threaten Alberta’s rivers and forests. On the US side, environmentalists expressed concerns about the pipeline— which would cross the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the world’s largest underground deposits of fresh water — being too risky.

However, proponents 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 curbing the fossil fuel emissions that are causing climate change. The Obama administration rejected it, but President Donald Trump revived it and was a strong supporter. Construction already started.

Canada could receive supplies from Pfizer in US

Biden and Trudeau also discussed the prospects of Canada being supplied with the COVID-19 vaccine from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan, according to a second senior Canadian government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.

Canada has been getting all its Pfizer doses from a Pfizer facility in Puurs, Belgium, but Pfizer has informed Canada it won’t get any doses next week and will get 50 per cent less than expected over the next three weeks. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has publicly asked Biden to share a million doses made at Pfizer’s Michigan facility.

The US federal government has an agreement with Pfizer in which the first 100 million doses of the vaccine produced in the US will be owned by the US government and will be distributed in the US. 

Anita Anand, the Canadian federal procurement minister, has said the doses that are emerging from the Michigan plant are for distribution in the United States.

The two leaders also spoke broadly about trade, defence and climate issues. Trudeau also raised the cases of two Canadians imprisoned in China in apparent retaliation for the arrest of a top Huawei executive, who was apprehended in Canada on a U.S. extradition request, according to the prime minister's office.

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