The President of the United States welcomed as a “great friend” by Justin Trudeau. Joe Biden made his first official visit to Canada on Friday March 24, where the two countries notably tied up an agreement on irregular immigration.
Washington and Ottawa will “work together to discourage illegal crossings” of their shared border, which exploded in 2022, the American president told Parliament. Joe Biden was applauded several times by the standing parliamentarians during his speech, in particular when he praised the commitment of the two countries to support Ukraine.
Canada, certainly relieved to turn the Trump page, rolled out the red carpet for the visit of the American president, the first since 2009.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who received the American president for a family dinner on his arrival, was very friendly during the short stay of Joe Biden, who was to leave Friday evening after a gala dinner. “It’s a great pleasure to have a great friend here,” said the Canadian leader, who had a very difficult relationship with former President Donald Trump.
The American president was not left out. Between a joke about his failed attempt to learn French and a joke about hockey, he evoked, lyrically, “two peoples” who share “the same heart” and who are committed to solving their problems “with friendship and good will”.
>> Canada-US border: when migrants turn back to the United States
Discussion on the situation in Haiti
As on immigration, therefore. The agreement announced Friday provides that Canada regularly welcomes 15,000 additional migrants from across the American continent.
In the background of this announcement, the “Roxham road”: a makeshift route by which about 40,000 migrants arrived from the United States in Quebec last year, bypassing official entry points.
Its closure is already worrying migrant aid organizations. “The result will be to push people either to attempt even more dangerous crossings in remote areas, or to push them towards smugglers”, lamented Julia Sande, of Amnesty international, with AFP.
Another topic of discussion was Haiti, in the throes of extreme violence and a serious humanitarian crisis. Justin Trudeau announced an envelope of 100 million Canadian dollars to support in particular the training of Haitian law enforcement.
But Joe Biden’s visit did not lead to an announcement about the possible dispatch of an international military force to the Caribbean country – a force that the United States says should ideally be led by Canada. “We want to keep the Haitian people at the center of solutions to resolve the crisis,” said the Canadian Prime Minister.
“The serious problems that China poses in the long term in the long term”
Military spending has also been up for debate, as Washington pushes for an effort by NATO members. The two countries have promised, according to a statement from the White House, “to invest in the modernization” of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad), which plays a strategic role in the detection of aerial intrusions.
Canada and the United States have also promised to cooperate in the fight against synthetic drug trafficking, and through an investment by the American giant IBM in its factory in Bromont, Quebec.
Finally, and this is now unavoidable during the American president’s diplomatic tours, the question of China came to the fore.
In their joint statement, Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau “take note of the serious problems that China poses in the long term for the international order” and undertake to fight against all foreign “interference”. This shortly after the opening of an investigation in Canada into allegations of Chinese interference in the last two federal elections.
During the press conference, Joe Biden was asked about the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping this week in Moscow.
“I don’t take China lightly. I don’t take Russia lightly,” he said, stressing however that interpretations of a strong rapprochement between the two countries were “very exaggerated”. “If anything has happened, it’s that the West has closed ranks considerably,” Joe Biden said.
With AFP
