Trudeau prepares for Biden visit
More and more jurisdictions, including the European Union and U.S. states like California and Maryland, are drawing up ambitious plans to end the manufacture of internal-combustion vehicles by 2035.
Joe Biden’s last official visit to Canada came with a palpable sense of foreboding.
Change was in the air. Authoritarian leaders in Syria and Turkey were consolidating power. Britain had voted to leave the European Union. And Donald Trump was waiting in the wings to take over the White House.
“Genuine leaders” were in short supply, and Canada and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would be called upon to step up, said the U.S. vice-president, who was on a farewell tour of sorts in the waning days of the Obama administration.
Six years later, Biden is coming back — this time as president — and the world is very different. His message likely won’t be.
“There’s a seriousness to this moment in America,” said Goldy Hyder, the president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, who spent much of last week meeting with U.S. officials in D.C.
Chinese spy balloons are drifting through North American airspace. Russian MiG fighter jets are downing U.S. drones as the bloody war in Ukraine grinds on. North Korea is testing long-range ballistic missiles.
And Xi Jinping is sitting down Monday with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, a meeting that will underscore the geopolitical context in which the U.S. sees the world _ and amp up the pressure on Canada to remain a willing and reliable partner, not only in Ukraine but elsewhere as well.
“It shines a much brighter light on security in all its forms: national security, economic security, energy security, cybersecurity — all of these things come home to roost,” Hyder said of that meeting.
“For America, there’s nothing more important, and there should nothing more important for us, quite frankly.”
Enter critical minerals, the vital components of electric-vehicle batteries, semiconductors, wind turbines and military equipment that both Biden and Trudeau consider pivotal to the growth of the green economy.
Ending Chinese dominance in that space is Job 1 for the Biden administration, and Canada has critical minerals in abundance. But it takes time to build an extractive industry virtually from scratch, especially in this day and age — and experts say the U.S. is growing impatient.
More and more jurisdictions, including the European Union and U.S. states like California and Maryland, are drawing up ambitious plans to end the manufacture of internal-combustion vehicles by 2035, Miller noted.
That’s just 12 years away, while it can take upwards of a decade to get approval for a mine, let alone raise the money, build it and put it into production, he added.
