Trudeau and Biden meet face to face as summit begins

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden are meeting face to face this morning as the North American Leaders’ Summit begins in earnest.

It’s the first formal bilateral for Biden and Trudeau — two-thirds of the so-called “Three Amigos” — since the Summit of the Americas in June.

Much like last year’s gathering of hemispheric leaders, Biden’s agenda will be dominated by the migratory crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.

That’s why this morning’s meeting will be Trudeau’s best chance this week to press Biden on issues of specific concern to Canada.

The two have plenty to talk about, from lingering trade disputes over dairy markets and the auto sector to the embattled trusted-traveller program known as Nexus.

There’s also the lingering question of when Biden will make his oft-delayed visit to Canada, normally one of the first foreign trips of a new president.

But for Canada, the overarching economic goal of the summit will be to ensure Biden — a vocal champion of protectionist, pro-labour domestic policy — sees America’s neighbours as true partners and collaborators.

That was clear enough from the summit of business leaders from across the continent that got the Canadian portion of the proceedings started on Jan. 9.

“Far too often, we’ve acted as either three independent countries or two bilateral relationships. In today’s world, that is going to leave us behind,” Business Council of Canada CEO Goldy Hyder told the gathering.

It’s time for leaders in all three countries to think more in terms of North America as a single, self-contained unit than as separate entities, Hyder said.

The U.S. argues that Canada’s supply-managed dairy market denies American producers fair access to customers north of the border. The U.S. also says Mexico is unfairly favouring domestic energy suppliers. And both Mexico and Canada say the U.S. isn’t playing fair when it comes to how it defines foreign content in its automotive supply chains.

Mexico is also under pressure to come to terms with the U.S. on Lopez Obrador’s plan to ban imports of genetically modified corn and the herbicide glyphosate, a decree that has angered American farmers.

Canada may have averted catastrophe when Biden’s electric-vehicle tax credits were amended last year to include North American manufacturers, but the president still rarely misses a chance to tout made-in-America supply chains.

Hopes are high that a pilot project at two entry points in Ontario will be expanded across the country as an end-run around the stalemate that would whittle away at a backlog of applications.