LOS ANGELIS –
US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are outlining significantly different paths today at the America’s Summit.
Before his leader meetings begin, Biden sits down to record a talk with talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.
Trudeau, who arrived in Los Angeles late Tuesday, is working on environmental priorities with Barbadian counterpart Mia Motley.
Later, the prime minister will attend a roundtable with leaders of Latin America and the Caribbean to discuss climate change, the protection of democratic values and the promotion of gender equality.
He will also speak with Shilpan Amin, president of General Motors International, about electric vehicles, hemisphere climate goals and efforts to boost economic growth.
In Ottawa, Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said it would be good for hemisphere people to do more together to improve economic integration and export opportunities.
“I think this is an economic area where Canada can play a leading role with the Caribbean, with Central America, with South America,” Champagne said during the group’s meeting.
Biden and Trudeau will meet later in the day, when the president will host all delegations at the official opening ceremony.
The meetings marked a turning point for Trudeau, who spent Tuesday afternoon in the thin air of the Rocky Mountains meeting with military personnel in Colorado.
He and Defense Minister Anita Anand toured the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, a fortified command center that houses part of Norad, the joint continental defense system.
Both sides agree that Norad, the world’s only binational defense system of its kind, needs modernization if it is to counter modern threats from potential aggressors such as Russia and China.
But neither Trudeau nor Anand give any clue as to what timeline may be involved.
Anand would only say that “several initiatives” are on the table and that a modernization plan will be forthcoming “soon” – a message she has been conveying for months.
Trudeau and Anand, surrounded by American and Canadian commanders Norad, met with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in a boardroom decorated with images of fighters and military insignia.
“I get up every day, as do all our other members, knowing that we have the noblest mission on the planet and that is defending our homeland,” said Glen Van Herck, general of the US Air Force, the current joint commander of Norad and Northern Command. USA.
The Canadian delegation later visited the Norad Command Fortress, surrounded by granite and concrete walls, which looked more like the lair of a James Bond villain than a military base.
VanHerck presented Trudeau with a piece of rock that surrounds the base, mounted on a platform and decorated with two of the coins to challenge the commander.
“Very impressive,” Trudeau said as officers demonstrated the facility’s impressive door, a meter-thick and 20-ton hydraulic hippopotamus reinforced with 22 thick steel rods that slide to provide an impermeable seal.
The Prime Minister then took on the shared responsibilities of Norad – the only binational co-command early warning system in the world – as a perfect illustration of the unique relationship between Canada and the United States.
“We see a time when the world is changing rapidly,” Trudeau said, referring to Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine and the prospect of developing long-range hypersonic weapons in Russia and China.
“Whether it’s new threats, new technologies or changing geopolitical realities, it’s becoming even more important for friends and allies like Canada and the United States to continue to work so closely together.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on June 8, 2022.
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