Joe Biden met with the leaders of Canada and Mexico at the White House on Thursday, after Ottawa urged US lawmakers to reject protectionist policies amid a row over electric vehicle subsidies.
The first trilateral meeting between the three heads of state since 2016 comes as Mexican and Canadian officials have complained that Biden’s plan to offer tax credits on US-made EVs, part of his $1.75tn spending package, breaks international trade rules.
The Canadian prime minister’s office said that Justin Trudeau had spoken to lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to “impress upon these key legislators the importance of bilateral co-operation”.
Biden tried to smooth tensions, calling relations with Canada “one of the easiest relationships that we have”, in remarks at his meeting with Trudeau.
The US president has said he is aiming to strengthen diplomatic relations across North America as officials seek to co-ordinate with allies to bolster critical supply chains and navigate the global crunch.
Before his meeting with Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Biden said the two countries were working on controlling the coronavirus pandemic, an inclusive economic recovery, and addressing migration.
Migration, mostly by Central Americans, through Mexico to the southern US border has been a core issue between the two countries. “There is a plan by the US government to assist Central America, which we very much celebrate,” López Obrador said on Thursday.
US officials said the three leaders planned to launch a supply-chain working group in a bid to “minimise future disruptions”, while other issues up for discussion included climate co-operation, health security and migration.
“North America is a platform that is critical to both our domestic economic success and as well as a partnership that can play a really critical role in resolving regional and global challenges,” an official said.
Washington has been pushing to secure the supply chains of critical industries such as semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and electric vehicle batteries to reduce over-reliance on countries such as China.
Canada in particular is a rich source of minerals critical to the manufacturing of electric vehicles, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite.
On Covid-19, the three leaders are expected to reach an agreement that Canada and Mexico will share some of the vaccines donated to them by the US with other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, a senior US official said. The official added that public health experts would determine the timing and number of doses.
Meanwhile, the US has expressed concerns about Mexican energy reforms, which sector experts say would make electricity more expensive and dirty.
López Obrador said if the issue were to come up at Thursday’s summit, he was prepared to urge to his counterparts to help stop what he called abuses by foreign energy companies, which he believed benefited unfairly from contracts offered by the previous administration.
“Do you think it’ll be hard for me to say this to president Biden or prime minister Trudeau? No, I doubt they are in favour of protecting the corrupt,” he said in a morning news conference on Wednesday.
A US official said the Biden administration “closely tracks” Mexico’s proposed energy reforms and was “prepared for the two presidents to discuss it”.
Source: Economy - ft.com
