WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden made his first calls to foreign leaders as U.S. commander-in-chief on Friday and at a tense moment called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for U.S. relations with his North American neighbors.
Biden’s call to Trudeau comes after the Canadian prime minister publicly expressed disappointment this week over Biden’s decision – one of his first acts as president – to issue an executive order halting construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The long-running controversial project is expected to transport about 800,000 barrels of oil a day from the tarmac beach of Alberta to the Gulf Coast of Texas through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.
In their private conversation, Biden told Trudeau that he was promising a campaign to halt the construction of the pipeline by issuing the order he was following, a senior Canadian government official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation between the nations’ leaders.
Biden also spoke to López Obrador on Friday, days after the Mexican president accused the U.S. drug enforcement administration of indicting the drug minister against the former defense minister.
While Mexico continues to promise to block mass movements of Central American migrants to the U.S. border, there was no shortage of potential hotspots between the two countries.
Mexico has demanded the return of former Secretary of Defense General Salvador Cienfuegos after he was arrested in Los Angeles in October, and has threatened to restrict U.S. agents in Mexico if he is not returned. U.S. prosecutors have agreed to drop charges and return Cienfuegos to Mexico.
But Mexico passed a law restricting foreign agents and waiving their immunity anyway, and published the U.S. case file against Cienfuegos, which quickly removed Mexican prosecutors from all charges.
López Obrador said in a statement that the conversation with Biden was “friendly and respectful.” The two discussed immigration and Covid-19, among others.
Before the call on Friday, Trudeau told reporters that he would not allow his differences with Biden over the project to become a source of tension in the US-Canada relationship.
“It’s not always going to fit in perfectly with the United States,” Trudeau said. “This is the case with any president, but we are in a situation where we are much more focused on values and focus. I am very much looking forward to working with President Biden. ”
Biden signed the executive order to halt construction of the pipeline, hours after he was sworn in.
“The late Keystone XL pipeline permit will not be in line with the economic and climate imperatives of my administration,” Biden’s executive order said.
Critics say the growing activity increases greenhouse gas emissions and threatens Alberta’s rivers and forests. On the American side, environmentalists have expressed concern about the pipeline – which will cross the Ogallala aquifer, one of the world’s largest underground deposits of fresh water – which is too risky.
Proponents of the project, however, say it will create thousands of jobs on both sides of the border.
The project was proposed in 2008, and the pipeline highlighted the tension between economic development and limiting fossil fuel emissions that cause climate change. The Obama administration rejected it, but President Donald Trump revived it and was a strong supporter. Construction has already begun.
According to a second senior Canadian government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Biden and Trudeau also discussed the prospect that Canada would supply the Covid-19 vaccine from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Canada received all its Pfizer doses at a Pfizer factory in Puurs, Belgium, but Pfizer informed Canada that they would not receive any doses next week and would receive 50% less than expected over the next three weeks. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has publicly asked Biden to share a million doses made at Pfizer’s Michigan plant.
The US federal government has an agreement with Pfizer in which the first 100 million doses of the vaccine produced in the US will be owned by the US government and will be distributed in the US. Anita Anand, the Canadian federal procurement minister, said the doses coming from the Michigan plant are for distribution in the United States.
The two leaders also spoke at length about trade, defense and climate issues. Trudeau also raised the issue of two Canadians detained in China in apparent retaliation for the arrest of a top executive of Huawei, who was arrested on a U.S. extradition request in Canada, according to the prime minister’s office.