Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with US President Donald Trump at the White House today.
Their Joint Statement highlighted:
The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline
“As the process continues for the Keystone XL pipeline, we remain committed to moving forward on energy infrastructure projects that will create jobs while respecting the environment.”
Regulatory harmonization
“We will continue our dialogue on regulatory issues and pursue shared regulatory outcomes that are business-friendly, reduce costs, and increase economic efficiency without compromising health, safety, and environmental standards.”
Border security
“We are building a 21st century border through initiatives such as pre-clearance of people and integrated cross-border law enforcement operations. In addition, our two countries are committed to a coordinated entry-exit information system so that records of land and air entries into one country establish exit records for the other. …We will also examine ways to further integrate our border operations, including analysis of the feasibility of co-locating border officials in common processing facilities.”
Missile defence
“United States and Canadian forces jointly conduct aerospace warning, aerospace control, and maritime warning in defense of North America. We will work to modernize and broaden our NORAD Partnership in these key domains, as well as in cyber and space.”
Military spending
“The United States welcomes Canada’s recently announced decision to launch an open and transparent competition to replace its legacy fleet of CF-18 fighter aircraft. The United States also welcomes Canada’s decision to explore the immediate acquisition of 18 new Super Hornet aircraft as an interim capability to supplement the CF-18s until the permanent replacement is ready.”
Their statement also noted a “shared focus on infrastructure investments”, “environmental cooperation, particularly along our border and at the Great Lakes”, and “harnessing all elements of national power to achieve the goal of degrading and destroying ISIS through our military operations”.
Many of these issues – harmonized regulatory standards, energy integration, shared foreign policy objectives, and integrated border security – are reminiscent of the deep integration agenda the United States, Canada and Mexico pursued under the Security and Prosperity Partnership about a decade ago.
