Full Comment - A weaker Biden can be better for Canada

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00:01:18.580 Hello, I'm guest host Adrienne Batra.

00:01:21.120 Thank you for joining us for the latest edition of Full Comment.

00:01:23.940 The U.S. midterms are upon us, and some are calling it one of the most consequential elections

00:01:29.680 in a generation.

00:01:31.400 With Democrats and Republicans in a tight battle for control of the House and the Senate, what

00:01:36.500 implications are there for Canada as to who ultimately controls Congress?

00:01:41.760 Professor Sands is a director of the Wilson Centre's Canada Institute, is an internationally

00:01:47.040 renowned specialist on Canada and U.S.-Canadian relations, and he joins me to unpack this weighty

00:01:54.080 question of who wins the midterms.

00:01:57.280 Professor Sands, thank you very much for joining me.

00:01:59.680 I'm glad to be here, Adrienne, and I'm a big fan of the podcast.

00:02:04.000 I do listen to it, so that's the only thing you didn't mention in my bio, but it's true.

00:02:09.100 Well, that is great to hear, and we look forward to having you again.

00:02:12.960 As we know, the ongoing relationship between the Canadian government, the U.S. government,

00:02:19.480 it is the friendliest, the largest undefended border, and often in Canada, we understand

00:02:29.680 and appreciate that the decisions that are made in the United States have a far greater

00:02:36.540 impact on what happens on this side of the border than perhaps most people appreciate.

00:02:42.060 So I think it's timely that we have this discussion about the midterms, as it is, as I said, a very

00:02:48.960 tight battle as to the control of Congress.

00:02:52.340 I'm wondering if we can start from the question of varying scenarios.

00:02:57.740 It is expected that the Republicans will take the House.

00:03:01.800 How is that going to have any implication on Canada?

00:03:06.120 What is it that House Republicans want to push the Biden government to do that impacts Canada?

00:03:14.600 Well, I think a couple of things are important to say at the outset.

00:03:18.360 First is that the Congress is a reflection of the polarized politics in the country, and those

00:03:25.460 polarized politics get all the news headlines, but beneath that, there's a generational transition

00:03:30.720 between the sort of greatest generation baby boomers that have run the United States, really 0.94

00:03:37.960 going back to Bill Clinton, the first baby boomer president.

00:03:41.020 And they've had a huge cultural impact.

00:03:43.340 They've brought a lot to the table.

00:03:44.740 But we are starting to see the rise of Generation X, the millennials, and Generation Z or Zed, who 0.92

00:03:53.480 are together now the majority of the electorate.

00:03:57.340 And yet, when you look at senior leadership, Nancy Pelosi in the House, Steny Hoyer, her deputy,

00:04:03.400 who's also important in the Democratic leadership, or in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, the president

00:04:10.180 himself, we have a set of leaders in the United States that really are leaders of the last

00:04:18.200 century.

00:04:18.940 In a lot of ways, their formative political years were during the 20th century, when we

00:04:24.020 had a Cold War, and your listeners will remember all of the features of that period.

00:04:28.980 But in light of the challenges we face today, the United States is really overdue for hearing

00:04:35.440 some new political voices who maybe look at politics in a different way.

00:04:39.880 And the congressional elections this year will give us a first taste of who some of the

00:04:44.240 emerging leaders are among both Republicans and Democrats.

00:04:47.700 And I think that's one of the reasons it's exciting, separate from the issue of who controls

00:04:51.080 things.

00:04:52.520 But I think that's such an important point, because the biggest accusation in politics is

00:04:58.860 you've been there far too long.

00:05:00.460 Incumbency rules the day.

00:05:02.320 And it doesn't really give the opportunity for new, fresh voices, fresh faces, more diversity

00:05:08.700 to enter the arena of politics.

00:05:10.820 And I think with the two-party system, it's very difficult for any independent to break

00:05:18.180 through.

00:05:18.640 They often end up sitting with the Democrats, for example.

00:05:22.720 But it is a desire by the American people to have very...

00:05:28.120 It seems to me that just the very basic things, a government that protects them, security in

00:05:36.000 their future, security in their border, energy security, energy independence, all basic,

00:05:44.340 straightforward things that often governments overreach and try to control other aspects of

00:05:51.480 one's life.

00:05:52.180 And I note that in this particular midterm, and I say it's consequential, it's been dubbed

00:05:57.660 one of the most consequentials, because a lot of Americans view that as the country, the

00:06:02.520 United States, is going in the wrong direction.

00:06:05.580 It is relying far too much on foreign oil, etc.

00:06:10.260 So it brings me back to this idea of what's happening in Canada.

00:06:13.660 One of President Joe Biden's first acts, as you know, was to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline.

00:06:19.540 Look, we knew it was coming, he campaigned on it, but he did it.

00:06:24.620 But now we have varying international forces at play with the war in Ukraine, with OPEX plus

00:06:31.820 now cutting production.

00:06:34.660 It's looking pretty good that Keystone XL would be a great opportunity, Professor Sands, to

00:06:40.900 have the Republicans, have the House and the Senate push Joe Biden to revisit that decision.

00:06:49.540 Absolutely.

00:06:50.540 And I think this goes to the sort of broader point of trying to solve today's problems

00:06:55.840 with the last century's solutions.

00:06:58.060 When we saw the emergence of Russia's invasion in Ukraine, and of course, China's all weather 0.99

00:07:03.520 or all no limits partnership with China.

00:07:06.460 I think that for a lot of that older generation, it's Cold War II.

00:07:12.220 When we started to see inflation and high gas prices, there was a flashback to some of the

00:07:17.580 same policy ideas we had in the 1970s during the two oil price shocks.

00:07:22.740 Oh, let's release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

00:07:26.120 Let's reach out to Saudi Arabia and get them to pump more. 1.00

00:07:29.340 Without recognizing that what's happened, what's different now, is that we have North

00:07:34.800 American supply chains.

00:07:35.940 We are, in the United States, capable of producing a lot of oil and gas ourselves, if we allow

00:07:41.340 that to happen.

00:07:41.980 And we have a great partner in Canada whose production, while not enough to cover all of

00:07:48.140 U.S. needs, certainly fills an important niche.

00:07:50.500 And yet, President Biden has been asking Venezuela or other countries that really don't like the

00:07:56.760 United States very much, or at least their governments don't, to solve the problem for

00:08:00.900 us.

00:08:01.120 And I think that really misses the technological development that allowed us to make, I think,

00:08:06.900 some of the cleanest oil out there in Alberta through the way in which the oil is now produced

00:08:13.540 and upgraded and carbon capture and storage, as well as fracking, which has really opened

00:08:17.840 up a lot of fossil fuels here.

00:08:19.480 And nobody's saying that's the permanent solution for the 20th century.

00:08:22.340 We all want to look at alternatives that are less damaging to the environment.

00:08:26.600 But it's been pretty clear that we need something now.

00:08:30.720 There's a statistic that we spent about $3.5 trillion over the last 10 years in order in

00:08:37.380 the United States to try to get ourselves to a more green energy future.

00:08:43.080 And we've gone from 82% reliance on fossil fuels to 81%.

00:08:48.400 So we dropped a percent at the cost of $3.6 billion.

00:08:51.820 So it's hard to argue that the fossil fuels we now depend on aren't part of the mix, at

00:08:57.080 least in a transition period going forward.

00:08:58.960 But our leadership is acting much more along the lines of, well, let's have a price on

00:09:03.660 pollution.

00:09:04.120 Let's see what we can't push out of the market.

00:09:06.820 Can we declare no more fossil fuel vehicles in California and other places?

00:09:10.200 I'm not sure that those are practical solutions, given the situation that we're in now.

00:09:16.620 Canadians and Americans are feeling the pinch as well of those carbon prices.

00:09:22.520 You know, in Canada, they're carbon taxes.

00:09:24.720 And the rate of inflation that Americans are facing over 8%.

00:09:31.820 We know that President Biden did dip in again into the strategic petroleum reserve, which

00:09:39.360 has drawn an incredible amount of criticism, not only from the other side of the political

00:09:43.800 aisle, but certainly even from those within his own party, that ultimately, when those reserves

00:09:48.760 have to be refilled, it's going to be at a much higher price and costing Americans even

00:09:55.040 more.

00:09:56.720 We have similar challenges here in Canada, of course, where there is a specific ideology

00:10:04.220 within certain factions of certain wings of the Democratic Party and certainly in the Liberal

00:10:09.360 Party here in Canada that doesn't take into consideration that our oil and gas industries on both sides

00:10:17.140 of the border, so heavily regulated, so heavily scrutinized, and they themselves have been far more

00:10:23.520 innovative, far more willing to take all of those environmental concerns into consideration and

00:10:30.840 actually act upon ensuring that what is brought out of the ground is renewed and it is, as you

00:10:42.220 mentioned that the carbon capturing, I find that, Professor Sands, it's far too vitriolic to recognize

00:10:48.980 the obvious solution.

00:10:50.940 And I'm wondering, how does that temperature, how does that conversation change?

00:10:58.820 Again, if the House and the Senate go red?

00:11:04.480 Well, there are a couple of things that, great question, because you packed a lot in there.

00:11:09.880 So first an observation, we are putting prices on carbon.

00:11:14.500 Canada is further ahead and the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has talked about going from

00:11:19.680 $50 a ton to $170, which is a very big jump.

00:11:23.000 There are only about 11 jurisdictions in the United States that have any kind of price on

00:11:27.900 carbon or carbon pricing system.

00:11:29.880 So one of the things we've been worried about since the passage of the USMCA or KUSMA, as

00:11:34.640 it's called in Canada, is that agreement allows for border carbon price adjustments.

00:11:41.100 So this would be a tax applied on goods coming into Canada that didn't pay a carbon price during

00:11:46.680 their production.

00:11:47.820 Now, theoretically, I can see how that would work.

00:11:50.360 It is an allowable tariff or an allowable sort of charge, but it would add a lot to the

00:11:55.580 cost of doing business.

00:11:56.720 And you think about the auto industry and the number of times that parts move back and forth.

00:12:00.360 We haven't worked out how this system could potentially emerge, but with the US not pricing

00:12:05.500 carbon universally and Canada moving in that direction, there's a huge trade fight that

00:12:10.080 will come.

00:12:10.900 And I can tell you car makers and others will say, well, do I get a rebate every time I

00:12:14.560 cross the border?

00:12:15.180 When do I pay the tax?

00:12:16.720 Now, that's pushing prices up at the same time that the US, and I'd say this was true

00:12:21.220 for Donald Trump's administration as well as Joe Biden's, and with the strong support

00:12:26.580 of Congress, we're trying to reduce our dependence on China, which has been very hostile.

00:12:30.800 Now, China may not have the best of intentions towards North America, but they did provide 0.98

00:12:36.100 cheap inputs that we all used in our daily lives.

00:12:40.680 To forego that, which is probably the right thing to do morally, economically, and strategically,

00:12:45.720 is going to mean that the things we rely on are going to be more expensive.

00:12:49.080 So you see that driving inflation in a way that really calls on governments, and this

00:12:55.240 is where I think the congressional picture matters so much, to find ways to reduce costs

00:13:00.860 for business.

00:13:02.200 And so going to Congress, they're looking at how can we lower taxes?

00:13:06.300 I think the Republicans would like to see the tax direction go to a lower level.

00:13:10.880 They'd also like to rein in some of US government spending, which they argue is contributing to

00:13:16.420 the inflation as well, especially spending on things that we may not need to have today.

00:13:22.180 We could forego at least until the economy slows down.

00:13:25.580 Think about big infrastructure projects, things like high-speed rail or investments in parks and

00:13:33.260 other things that could be set to one side until we're in a better position.

00:13:37.240 The other thing, and this is maybe the meta-argument around these congressional elections, is the hope

00:13:42.600 that President Biden and the Democrats around him in his cabinet are, at their heart, closer

00:13:50.080 to the center of the Democratic Party than the progressive wing.

00:13:53.360 But given Democrats control both houses of Congress and the White House, it was hard for

00:13:59.080 President Biden to resist the pressure to continue to move governance in the United States

00:14:04.000 further to the left.

00:14:05.140 He needed those progressive votes to make up his majorities.

00:14:08.000 And his majorities in the House and the Senate were very, very thin, just one vote in the

00:14:12.900 Senate and obviously very tight, not quite as tight in the House.

00:14:16.540 If this shifts so that the House becomes Republican, even that one chamber, you get two very positive

00:14:22.300 effects, I think, for US governance.

00:14:25.100 First, President Biden can say to the hard left of his party, I agree with you on some ideas,

00:14:32.280 but we have to deal with the Republicans or we're not going to get anything done.

00:14:35.220 So we need a more centrist policy approach.

00:14:37.680 And I think, given his track record, that's closer to where President Biden is in his heart

00:14:41.840 politically, a bit more of a centrist.

00:14:45.100 Republican control of the House gives him something to push back against his left wing with.

00:14:50.600 The second thing is that I think that's closer to where a lot of the voters are.

00:14:55.220 And having to bring things closer to the center, building consensus is what we really need.

00:15:01.640 So I don't know what that consensus will look like, but having divided government at this point

00:15:07.520 when the country itself is so divided is a recipe for getting closer to a central point

00:15:12.320 that may redefine how we deal with some of these big issues, particularly the dinner table issues

00:15:17.180 of inflation, high energy prices, the things that are really hurting families now trying to cope

00:15:22.920 with a lingering pandemic, a global mess in terms of geopolitics.

00:15:28.860 It's a lot on our plates, and we've been responding to it with outdated solutions

00:15:33.640 and, I think, too many extreme solutions rather than trying to find a way to the center.

00:15:39.460 Let's stick to the points you were making with respect to the real domestic issues

00:15:44.520 that are facing Americans.

00:15:46.020 And by extension, Canada faces these as well.

00:15:50.240 But specifically because you have this election on the horizon, the filibuster that remains

00:15:58.760 is challenging.

00:16:00.320 And pick your president, be it Democrat or Republican.

00:16:04.140 They'll say the Democrats are holding it up.

00:16:07.140 The Democratic president, the Republicans are holding it up.

00:16:10.200 Very little is then ultimately accomplished for the American people.

00:16:13.720 And that leads to sea change elections.

00:16:16.460 We saw it in 2016, for example.

00:16:19.740 We saw it in 2008, for example.

00:16:23.160 So those are the ongoing factors internally in the United States.

00:16:32.220 I'm wondering if there is that room for compromise because the temperature is so high.

00:16:40.420 And I put it to you in this context because the Democrats have focused so much on January 6th,

00:16:47.880 and you have these hearings going on, and they are – it's basically painting the picture

00:16:53.320 of anything the other guy or gal is proposing is wrong, and it's never going to work.

00:17:00.160 How does that change on November 9th?

00:17:04.760 Does that change on November 9th?

00:17:06.640 Well, it might.

00:17:08.660 Let me kind of take this in two ways.

00:17:11.780 First, I think that one of the problems when one party owns, controls both houses of Congress

00:17:18.480 and the White House, is that the other party in opposition has really no incentive to cooperate.

00:17:25.940 And we've seen this from Republicans.

00:17:28.120 I'll give you a comparison.

00:17:29.100 So President Biden started office with House and Senate under Democratic control,

00:17:34.240 but so too did President Obama, and so too did Bill Clinton when they first came in.

00:17:40.200 Now, for Obama and Clinton, it was a midterm election that gave Republicans a chamber of the Congress,

00:17:47.020 whether it was House or Senate, that really triggered their most productive

00:17:51.440 and popular policy initiatives because of the need to collaborate.

00:17:59.160 And, you know, certainly we saw Bill Clinton try to nationalize health care in his early years.

00:18:06.400 He got rebuked, but then he was saying, you know, the year of big government is over,

00:18:10.400 and we're going to do welfare reform.

00:18:11.940 And Bill Clinton with Newt Gingrich running the House, it was a bumpy ride,

00:18:16.480 but tried to deal with a number of issues that were much more at the center of our economy.

00:18:21.020 President Obama also tried a big health care initiative in his first couple of years

00:18:25.120 while he was trying to recover from the 2008 financial crisis.

00:18:30.580 His first midterms, he got, as he called it, a shellacking.

00:18:34.440 It wasn't good, but it led to greater cooperation on economic policy.

00:18:39.580 Not perfect, but greater cooperation after.

00:18:41.440 So I do, and I think that's partly because the president himself will make a change,

00:18:47.660 but the other side of it is the responsibility.

00:18:50.080 If Republicans don't own anything, they can sit on the sidelines and blame the Democrats for everything.

00:18:55.320 And anything that isn't resolved, well, the Democrats need to do more.

00:18:58.980 They need to change their policy direction.

00:19:01.640 Rather than providing an incentive for the Republicans to own some of the responsibility

00:19:06.040 for what happens in the country, which means that they come to the table and say,

00:19:09.600 well, we have ideas and we're going to do something constructive.

00:19:12.320 I think we've been missing that the last two years, and I hope that that brings about some change here.

00:19:17.980 The second thing, which I'll come back to, you mentioned January 6th.

00:19:23.300 I have to admit for your listeners who hopefully won't hold it against me

00:19:26.440 that I've been living in Washington here in the swamp for a long time.

00:19:30.240 I got my first job at CSIS back in 1993, the Center for Strategic International Studies.

00:19:36.440 So I've been in and around the think tank community for a while.

00:19:38.580 And while it didn't get the attention, I certainly remember that at the beginning of the Trump administration,

00:19:44.920 the start of the Obama administration, protests and it was Occupy Washington or it was some other group.

00:19:52.360 And we had people vandalizing buildings.

00:19:56.720 They didn't storm the Capitol Hill, but they certainly did a lot of damage and tried to stop inaugurations

00:20:02.220 and discourage people from being in the streets to protest what they thought was an unfair election.

00:20:06.880 So we've seen this before, but for some reason, January 6th has been elevated to a uniquely insurrectionist moment.

00:20:13.680 And the more we find out about it, it does seem like maybe a riot that went too far with some irresponsible people,

00:20:19.340 but hardly a unique moment in recent American history that suggests that our democracy is in trouble.

00:20:24.960 Certainly, we need to start having conversations or less protest, but we've seen the movie before.

00:20:29.880 People have expressed their frustration with elections in public for a long time now.

00:20:35.660 And I'm thinking a little bit of Christopher Freeland's visit to Alberta, where I guess it's the cultural protest.

00:20:45.340 Sometimes an ordinary citizen will disregard all decorum and get quite nasty.

00:20:50.840 And we are seeing this in our politics in Canada and the United States.

00:20:54.160 And so for me, I think that is the wrong route.

00:20:57.800 I mean, it just doesn't get us anywhere to shout, scream, do vandalism, get very personal in attacks.

00:21:04.900 Instead, what we need to be doing is finding the space for moderation.

00:21:08.220 And I would say that a lot of what we've seen in terms of outbursts have been older people. 0.99

00:21:12.860 And I think millennials and Generation Z, looking at what we've done in the last couple of years,

00:21:19.260 I think they're hungry for a different way of doing politics, a politics that yields results.

00:21:24.100 Now, they may disagree on what results they want, but this way of doing politics in the United States and Canada,

00:21:29.780 perhaps particularly worse in the United States, is dysfunctional.

00:21:33.400 It's unpleasant.

00:21:34.080 And I think in the long run, it chases smart, good people away from public life.

00:21:39.080 They don't want to be politicians.

00:21:40.360 Why would you?

00:21:40.920 You get insulted.

00:21:41.880 Your family gets harassed.

00:21:43.180 It's a bit of a nightmare.

00:21:45.240 And we need good people to get back into government again and to try to make the world a better place.

00:21:51.680 It's not easy, but it's something I think we've discouraged our best and brightest from doing

00:21:55.400 because of the way in which we've let politics become so toxic.

00:22:00.280 We will be back with more full comment in a moment.

00:22:04.080 I think you've made some excellent observations there, Professor Sands,

00:22:09.540 to the temperature of how we live in this current political climate.

00:22:17.940 I think social media has had a significant impact on that.

00:22:20.680 I think it's changed so very much.

00:22:22.460 But I want to shift our gaze sort of to the international factors at play.

00:22:29.840 Not only will they impact the midterms, but they will also impact what happens domestically,

00:22:39.160 of course, with Canada, United States.

00:22:41.180 And I want to pick up on the comment with respect to China, OPEC plus, President Biden going to the Saudis.

00:22:52.540 Very questionable decision there.

00:22:55.060 But the international forces at play.

00:22:58.060 First, I want to start with Russia's illegal invasion in Ukraine. 0.82

00:23:04.900 It is coming.

00:23:06.620 Winter is coming.

00:23:08.540 Europe is going to be in a massive and big, big trouble when it comes to their heating their homes

00:23:14.860 because they rely so much on coming from Russia.

00:23:17.700 Was it a miscalculation from President Biden to go to the Saudis to sort of have what he says is those conversations

00:23:30.240 and then to see OPEC plus turn around within weeks of that visit, within just weeks, say they are going to lower production?

00:23:40.220 Talk to me about how that perception out there is going to impact Biden's presidency for the next couple of years

00:23:49.760 as the very practical reality for Americans, Canadians, Europeans needing to heat their home

00:23:56.880 and that too heavy reliance on foreign oil.

00:24:00.660 Well, I think this is something that even the Biden administration would admit was a stinging rebuke from the Saudi leaders.

00:24:08.300 And it's difficult.

00:24:11.300 The United States, under President Biden, early on wanted to call out the Saudis.

00:24:18.460 I think it was part of contrasting the Biden administration with the Trump administration.

00:24:22.620 They wanted to criticize Mohammed bin Salman for his behavior, particularly the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi,

00:24:33.400 which is tied to his government.

00:24:35.680 Not things you shouldn't object to, but the older tradition of statecraft is you have your disagreements

00:24:42.880 and you have your practical working agreements.

00:24:44.800 And I think it was a mistake to personalize the relationship too soon.

00:24:48.780 And then, of course, having done so, it made it very difficult for the U.S. to call in a favor later on.

00:24:55.700 There's also a sense, given the invasion of Ukraine, given the saber rattling, if you want to call it that,

00:25:05.020 between the U.S. and China over Taiwan.

00:25:07.620 We're in a situation where the U.S. is very much tied down by major global conflicts.

00:25:17.620 And it affects the Europeans, it affects the Canadians, all of our allies who look to us for setting a tone

00:25:22.340 or trying to set some leadership in motion here.

00:25:24.700 And it is a time when countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran may feel that the U.S. is overloaded.

00:25:31.980 We've got a little bit more liberty to maybe act out or do things that we want to.

00:25:38.520 The U.S. simply can't fight us all at once.

00:25:41.500 We've seen Turkey similarly sort of pushing back against the West

00:25:45.860 and engaging with the Russians despite the Western embargo that we've had.

00:25:52.220 I think there are a lot of those elements in play where U.S. leadership is not at its strongest

00:25:57.580 because it's seen to be pinned down and also because it seemed to be run for domestic purposes.

00:26:02.860 And I think that's underlying the connection between where we started the conversation about U.S. politics

00:26:09.020 and the international scene.

00:26:10.360 When a country is quite divided, it takes more effort to pull together majorities and get things done.

00:26:16.800 And you've seen in the United States, and I would argue in Canada as well,

00:26:20.920 as the global situation has worsened, our leaders have focused on what plays well politically at home

00:26:27.360 as a way of building support for their governments

00:26:30.220 rather than what in a strategic sense might be the most prudent course internationally.

00:26:36.220 And it happens. Obviously, that's politics.

00:26:38.760 You have to watch your base. You have to pay attention to what matters.

00:26:42.360 We saw that this week, actually.

00:26:44.520 A group of some 30 Democrats in the House signed a letter calling on the Biden administration

00:26:51.680 to begin negotiations with Russia to end the war in Ukraine and pull back from it.

00:26:58.200 And that letter had been out for a while, but it suddenly got attention this week

00:27:02.140 because those same Democrats, looking at how the public reacted to the idea of doing a peace deal with Russia,

00:27:10.100 given the way that Russia has behaved, they decided to withdraw the letter.

00:27:14.300 But that's domestic politics against an international conflict.

00:27:18.740 And it only got the attention it did because President Biden has to pay attention to those voices within his own party.

00:27:23.560 If we see Congress change and we see stronger Republican voices, we won't stop the conflict.

00:27:30.060 But I think we'll be pushing ourselves back to a traditional approach to American leadership,

00:27:35.420 where I hope we can go back to what Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg used to say as his maxim,

00:27:41.360 that politics stops at the water's edge,

00:27:43.400 that we can approach the world with a sort of united front among Americans,

00:27:47.440 who are fairly united in their disapproval of Russia's invasion,

00:27:52.360 their contempt for Chinese authoritarianism and the bullying of Taiwan.

00:27:56.300 There is a lot of unity in foreign policy, if we could pull ourselves together,

00:28:00.880 that I think has been masked by the kind of, I don't know,

00:28:04.720 gestures to the left, to some elements in the Democratic Party base that may make sense domestically,

00:28:11.040 but have not helped us internationally.

00:28:12.700 And it's very much a focus in Canada, particularly with Russia's aggression.

00:28:22.260 Our former Prime Minister Stephen Harper once is known for saying to Putin's face,

00:28:27.660 get out of Crimea. 0.76

00:28:29.500 And, you know, when friendly Canadians were offering advice to President Joe Biden on how to deal with Putin,

00:28:36.360 it was to confront him.

00:28:38.180 Of course, Prime Minister Harper was instrumental in making sure it became a G7 and not a G8.

00:28:44.120 So we've had some strong leadership in that regard.

00:28:46.820 But we focus on the actions of what they've done in Crimea,

00:28:51.020 what they're currently doing in Ukraine,

00:28:52.820 because we know that there are strategic resources and military strategy

00:28:59.140 for taking over the Arctic,

00:29:03.520 which is, of course, is very important to Canada.

00:29:05.960 So this, I bring this up because the reality Canadians face

00:29:12.740 is that if there is any type of aggression,

00:29:17.580 implicit or otherwise, towards our country,

00:29:21.360 we look to the South,

00:29:23.780 we look to the United States to be there,

00:29:26.440 our partner and our ally to defend whatever needs to be defended.

00:29:30.880 And I think it's such an important point that you bring up,

00:29:34.800 that there is a stretch of the U.S. military or what they can do.

00:29:41.260 You know, Senator Rand Paul once infamously said,

00:29:43.960 you know, the U.S. shouldn't be the world's police.

00:29:46.560 And I think a lot of Americans feel that way,

00:29:49.040 and that they feel that they don't want to get drawn into a war against Russia with Ukraine

00:29:54.780 and some, what some have dubbed a proxy war.

00:29:57.720 But I know I'm throwing a lot into the mix here,

00:30:00.440 but it's all interconnected,

00:30:01.480 because the United States is perceived as weaker right now in that regard.

00:30:09.160 And that if there were far more strong voices pushing back against a Vladimir Putin,

00:30:15.460 for example,

00:30:16.760 that, you know,

00:30:17.800 arming Ukrainians is fantastic.

00:30:20.200 Training Ukrainians has been going very well. 0.98

00:30:25.200 But at what point does it become real when you listen to a madman like Vladimir Putin, 0.98

00:30:29.440 when he says, 0.98

00:30:30.060 I've got nuclear weapons and I'm going to use them?

00:30:32.960 If a perceived weak U.S. isn't able to stand up against that,

00:30:37.920 what shot does the rest of the world have?

00:30:39.860 Well, I know.

00:30:40.900 And this is something that I think we also have to consider.

00:30:44.980 We saw last week,

00:30:46.100 House Minority Leader,

00:30:50.500 Kevin McCarthy,

00:30:51.440 talking about the importance of maybe spending less on Ukraine.

00:30:56.300 Maybe we need to pull back.

00:30:57.860 So this is,

00:30:58.740 which I don't think was a great direction,

00:31:01.320 although obviously,

00:31:02.700 I mean,

00:31:02.960 he's reflecting the sentiment of a lot of Americans as well.

00:31:05.540 In the years of the Trump administration and then the Biden administration,

00:31:11.500 we saw,

00:31:12.700 I think,

00:31:12.860 an important shift in American defense policy away from what Max Boot calls the savage wars of peace,

00:31:21.720 the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere in favor of a more traditional deterrent strategy,

00:31:27.920 build up the U.S. military to deter the aggression of others.

00:31:31.000 But while that shift was occurring,

00:31:35.560 we failed to deter a Russian invasion in Ukraine.

00:31:38.720 And now that there are people fighting,

00:31:42.380 deterrence is moot.

00:31:44.040 We still may have an ability to have a discussion of deterrence with regard to China.

00:31:48.360 That's something that the Chinese have made a lot of advances technologically in their military.

00:31:52.980 I think the U.S. with its allies is more than a match for that.

00:31:56.560 But the perception that the U.S. is in this shift,

00:31:59.180 it's caught at a bad time while it's domestically divided,

00:32:01.800 I think does transmit a concerning message of weakness to those who want to take a poke at us,

00:32:08.040 Canada and the U.S. together.

00:32:10.620 And you see that a little bit from the encounter Canada had over Meng Wanzhou and the two Michaels. 0.99

00:32:16.640 This was something that I think really would not have happened in the old Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

00:32:25.920 The idea of taking hostages and having this go on for quite a long time and not be resolved.

00:32:31.280 And thank goodness it has been resolved.

00:32:33.120 But China doesn't look at Canada and say,

00:32:37.780 oh, they're off limits because they're an American ally.

00:32:40.060 They have no trouble poking at Canada, as we saw.

00:32:42.700 And I think this is something of the new geopolitics that we have to learn to cope with.

00:32:48.180 And the U.S., I think, there are a lot of smart people thinking about how do we adapt to this era.

00:32:53.020 That brings me back to that frustration.

00:32:55.960 You can see voices in Congress trying to talk about what could we do differently?

00:32:59.160 How can we strengthen the U.S.?

00:33:00.340 Nobody wants to see the U.S. necessarily weakened.

00:33:03.200 But in the absence of a strong sort of foreign policy consensus in the U.S.,

00:33:06.980 we're at a very difficult point.

00:33:10.480 And I take your point.

00:33:11.800 What does Canada do? 0.95

00:33:13.020 How can Canada support U.S. engagement?

00:33:15.980 And there have been some areas where Canada, I think, has done a good job.

00:33:18.720 For example, as we saw in the national security strategy that was released last week,

00:33:24.320 the U.S. gave a call out to Canada's international effort on arbitrary detention,

00:33:31.620 which was a direct response to the holding of the two Michaels,

00:33:35.140 but one which has gotten a lot of international support.

00:33:37.340 And the U.S. acknowledged there and gave a shout out to Canada's leadership on that

00:33:42.020 for making an important contribution to the discussion of how the rules should be written

00:33:47.100 in this new sort of tense era between the U.S. and China and others.

00:33:51.900 And I think those are the kinds of initiatives that Canada's long been known for,

00:33:55.920 trying to make a constructive difference, trying to bring a moral voice to the fore.

00:33:59.960 And the U.S. needs that.

00:34:02.280 The U.S. can't assume its allies are always there for us.

00:34:06.080 We need to be conscious of the importance of tending those relationships.

00:34:09.840 But there was a good example of where Canada made a difference,

00:34:12.560 where it didn't all fall in the U.S.

00:34:15.080 And we need to reciprocate by supporting Canada's initiatives like that

00:34:18.540 to try to make sure that this conflict with Russia and China

00:34:23.340 or this great power rivalry or however you characterize it

00:34:26.100 doesn't end in another world war.

00:34:32.080 I think that that is a very important aspect of what we're seeing unfolding.

00:34:38.200 And your former president, George W. Bush, once infamously called it,

00:34:43.980 you know, the axis of evil.

00:34:46.500 And I know that there is a perception that we're seeing this emergence

00:34:50.360 of a new axis of evil may not be called that,

00:34:53.820 but certainly there are remnants of this partnership,

00:34:58.800 you know, perceived or otherwise, of China and Russia.

00:35:02.980 And it brings me to one of the things that you referred to earlier.

00:35:07.660 And that was our global supply chain, so much reliance that we all have on China.

00:35:14.240 You know, the goods are cheaper, costs us, you know,

00:35:16.460 we're used to buying those things at the dollar store

00:35:18.460 and those things are made in China.

00:35:21.320 But we realized during the pandemic that if we don't have supply

00:35:25.960 and goods made in our own backyard,

00:35:28.560 we're going to have to continue that reliance,

00:35:31.140 which gives them so much more strength.

00:35:33.760 With Xi Jinping's basically now in the same position as Putin is,

00:35:38.200 he's going to govern for life.

00:35:40.340 These are very concerning aspects to what we in the Western world

00:35:47.480 perceive as real global threats.

00:35:50.240 And finding that balance of dealing with your midterms and your domestic issues

00:35:56.280 versus these very real international conflicts that are at the forefront.

00:36:02.040 I think that there is a very big concern from the citizenry on both sides of our border.

00:36:09.520 We've got leadership that's not there,

00:36:11.560 that is prepared to handle it and manage that

00:36:14.460 because they're far more focused on lighter issues, you know.

00:36:19.420 And I mean, all things can be equal at the same time.

00:36:22.140 You can deal with domestic.

00:36:23.400 You can deal with international.

00:36:24.580 I just feel that there's often a perception that the gaze is not focused enough

00:36:30.660 on tying all that together.

00:36:36.780 I'm kind of talking about it in a roundabout way,

00:36:39.760 but China is the strength and that's the perception.

00:36:44.940 And the U.S. and our allies are not perceived that way anymore.

00:36:48.760 Well, and I would take it, I'm going to make your problem worse of pulling all these things together

00:36:54.640 because I want to add another element.

00:36:57.880 These big headlines have distracted us from what has been our reality for the last couple of years,

00:37:02.720 which is the pandemic.

00:37:04.060 And I think Canada and the U.S. have come through the pandemic,

00:37:07.340 not smoothly, but we've come through it.

00:37:10.620 We're mostly past the worst, I think.

00:37:13.220 But there are a lot of countries, particularly in the developing world,

00:37:16.320 where the pandemic has left a lot of damage.

00:37:21.340 Some countries are looking at 10, even 20 years of economic development

00:37:25.600 that they've kind of regressed, gone backwards.

00:37:28.680 And their economies are a mess.

00:37:31.420 You think about the way we worry about our school kids

00:37:34.520 and what was the damage of masking them and making them do online classes.

00:37:39.240 What will that mean for their futures?

00:37:41.140 Well, what's the situation in Mexico, in Brazil, in Nigeria?

00:37:47.840 There are some real setbacks.

00:37:49.540 And those countries are going to be looking to recover.

00:37:51.540 After World War II, we were in the fortunate position in North America 0.95

00:37:55.300 that our cities hadn't been bombed, and we had some industrial capacity

00:37:58.800 and agricultural capacity to feed the world.

00:38:01.260 And we were able to really, I think, found the Western Alliance

00:38:07.860 on our ability to help feed the world, defend the world,

00:38:11.380 and supply the world with goods.

00:38:13.540 And we helped the world to recover with things like the Marshall Plan

00:38:17.080 and with Europe and other international development assistance

00:38:21.120 in different places around the world

00:38:22.740 that offered countries a vision of the West as a place where you got good things,

00:38:28.980 where people were kind and helpful,

00:38:30.840 and we were trying to build a more just, more equitable,

00:38:33.740 and more generous world order

00:38:34.860 and help those who are further behind economically to catch up.

00:38:38.680 Where we are now, I think, is a similar challenge,

00:38:42.540 but I don't know that we're as well positioned.

00:38:45.040 We have so many challenges at home, so many costs at home,

00:38:48.220 inflation as well.

00:38:49.160 Well, what will we do when the countries who are our friends,

00:38:53.340 who have been friendly to us in the past in the developing world,

00:38:56.740 reach out and say, help, we need to recover too.

00:39:00.060 Will we be the partner that India needs? 0.90

00:39:01.820 Will we be the partner that countries in the Middle East need?

00:39:05.480 Are we prepared to help them recover with development assistance

00:39:09.000 or even with free trade,

00:39:11.240 giving them at least the chance to sell into our markets as we recover?

00:39:14.820 That's the vision that we had in the past.

00:39:18.180 It might be relevant now,

00:39:19.320 but I think we need to think about more than ourselves,

00:39:22.640 even though we always focus on ourselves

00:39:25.120 and the bilateral relationship is important.

00:39:27.300 But I think Canada and the United States are on the horns

00:39:30.780 or I guess on the edge of a real challenge,

00:39:33.320 which is how do we help the world across the board to recover,

00:39:38.440 to address climate change,

00:39:39.820 to address other major challenges

00:39:41.220 that simply can't be solved by a nation alone.

00:39:45.380 It's a very difficult time,

00:39:47.080 but the premise of your question,

00:39:50.180 pulling all of these threads together,

00:39:51.620 I think you're right, it's complex,

00:39:53.860 but that's also quite necessary.

00:39:56.320 And it's important for us to have

00:39:57.740 that kind of big interconnected view of things

00:40:00.300 because otherwise we're going to miss something

00:40:02.780 very, very important.

00:40:03.720 And what's not on the agenda is as important,

00:40:06.360 I think in this case,

00:40:07.120 as what has been very much front and center.

00:40:09.020 I really appreciate you speaking so plainly about this

00:40:14.800 and making some sense of it for us.

00:40:16.600 It will be fascinating to see what changes,

00:40:20.980 the dynamics that do come forward

00:40:23.060 if the changes that we expect to happen

00:40:26.080 with the midterms unfold.

00:40:29.080 Dr. Sands, thank you very much.

00:40:30.520 It's been a pleasure, Adrienne.

00:40:31.640 Thank you very much.

00:40:32.980 Full Comment is a post-media podcast.

00:40:35.420 I'm guest host Adrienne Batra.

00:40:36.880 This episode was produced by Andre Pru

00:40:39.060 with theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:40:41.240 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:40:43.480 You can subscribe to Full Comment

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00:40:58.440 Thank you.

00:41:00.440 Thank you.

Full Comment - November 07, 2022

A weaker Biden can be better for Canada

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