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A visit by president Biden to Canada to meet president Trudeau shows a unity of purpose of the two leaders who have a close Justin and Joe relationship, says this report in NYT. Before the trip an agreement had been reached by which the two countries can ease pressures of migration from the southern hemisphere. Migrants seeking asylum in Canada from the US will be turned back at Roxham Crossing. Canada will accept 15,000 refugees from persecution, violence or economic devastation, to ease pressures of illegal crossings into the US from Mexico. The trip comes after Trudeau's frosty relationship with former president Trump. It also comes as Canada and the US build a closer relationship to meet challenges of multipolar world from China.

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At the G-7 meetings in Alberta, Canada DJT said the 2014 exclusion of Russian president Vladimir Putin, from the G8 after Moscow's unilateral annexation of Crimea, was a serious mistake leading to the war in Ukraine. "He [Putin] was insulted (...) Barack Obama and a person named [Justin] Trudeau didn't want to have Russia in. And I would say that was a mistake because you wouldn’t have a war right now" in Ukraine, Trump said in a discussion with journalists on the sidelines of the G-7 meeting with the Canadian PM Carney. This is a significant observation by DJT who understood better than Bush and Obama, Trudeau, what has preserved the peace in the world and the importance of US-Russia relations even after the end of the Cold War. This is true for DJT interaction with China also because DJT also maintains that despite China's assertion of rights in Hong Kong, despite the outsourcing of industry to China and Make In America, US-China relations are important for peace in the world. ...

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Voter fatigue with the Conservatives under prime minister Harper is showing up in the province of Ontario. The area around London, Ontario, and Toronto is critical in the 2015 general election. A large loss of manufacturing jobs has left this key manufacturing region of Canada so weakened that the recent 20% decline in the Canadian currency is not leading to a rebound in the manufacturing sector. The Liberals under Justin Trudeau have promised to run a slight deficit to invest in infrastructure that would help the manufacturing sector, while Harper's Conservatives plan to keep the status quo. The vigorous campaign run by Trudeau, the son of a former prime minister, is also helping the Liberals, who are moving ahead in the polls.

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Mr. Trump has given his personal cellphone number to some world leaders so he can talk directly with them, This comes from his business background, drawing from one of his personal skills. This includes Canada's Justin Trudeau and Frances's Macron. This is a problem for the diplomats and officials because they are often left out and their assessments are not considered to be serious or reflecting the president's thinking.

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A strong advocate of women's rights and gender equality, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau now faces questions from women who say feminist leadership cannot stoop down to backroom politics but must remain principled leadership. This follows Trudeau's non-apology for putting a female minister in his cabinet in a difficult situation including demotion to a lower position.

The minister was not willing to negotiate a settlement on corruption charges against a Quebec based company, but says she was was pressured to do so. 

Trudeau benefitted from his strategy winning the 2015 election with a large vote from women. With an election 7 months away the support from women is now eroding. One comment was referred to him as some feminist prime minister, with too much mansplaining. 

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US president Biden visits the southern border with Mexico where there is a surge of migrants mostly from Nicaragua. He meets Texas Governor Abbott and visits the El Paso border area and El Paso county Migrant Support Center. He will then meet Lopez Obrador of Mexico and Justin Trudeau of Canada in a summit meeting in Mexico. This report in the WSJ says Mr. Biden is pursuing policy that will send back migrants including Title 42 used by the Trump administration. Republicans have made the border a top priority. Trump era policy requires Mexico to take back 30,000 migrants a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Biden plans to continue these policies for illegal entry to stem the surge.

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The declining popularity of prime minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives in Canada in 2013. The Liberals under Justin Trudeau, son of a popular Liberal prime minister in the seventies, see an upsurge in their popularity as the Conservatives see a large dip in the polls. New elections are planned for 2015. Harper announces new proposals to help consumers in the new session of parliament.

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Trudeau's agenda for Canada in 2020 includes addressing the widening social gaps in society. Plans include renewed focus on social policy, increasing child care spaces, and improving care for the elderly. Trudeau says the government can take on more debt to help the economy recover and create jobs. A second wave means more help is needed for the economy and people struggling on low incomes. The second wave is here in Canada as cases increased from 5000 a day to 8000 this week from the prior week.

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Photos of leaders from US, Europe and Japan at the G-7 meeting on the coastline at Cornwall, UK. Scathing humor from Hannah Jane Parkinson with the photos as The Guardian looks at the other side of these meetings.  Some of this humor- About Merkel- she may be looking forward to taking a break from keeping control of this kindergarden of people who run the world. Justin Trudeau- looks like he has morphed into Llewelyn-Bowen a British television personality who does home renovation, and the suggestion that Johnson could have had Trudeau do his $200,000 home renovation for much less.  Biden and Boris Johnson with Biden's hand over Johnson's shoulder- probably Jane Parkinson says Biden telling Johnson not to pretend and act like a walrus over dinner which Johnson is plain to see planning to do, because I know you are a bit of a clown. All said in humor. Johnson in parliament a lot more human, responsive and caring than any of his predecessors, and Biden taking on the role of Truman and FDR in the mature years of their presidency. ...

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This WSJ editorial say the Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau's plan to keep corporate taxes at 15% to give Canada an advantage over the U.S., and efforts to moderate spending are an improvement over policies pursued under the administration of former Liberal Party premier Pierre Trudeau.

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The Angus Reid Insititute in Canada poll shows 65% of Canadians think it is too much to handle for Canada to take in the 31,000 refugees that have come to Canada since the Trump administration took office. In July 2018 58% of Canadians think the refugee policy of prime minister Trudeau is "too generous" compared to 53% a year earlier. 

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Two weeks after his election Donald Trump says the U.S. will not join the Trans Pacific Trade Agreement during his term in office. Barack Obama took seven years to negotiate the trade agreement which was opposed by trade unions, the auto industry and was unpopular in the midwestern U.S. because of the impact of trade in hollowing out the manufacturing sector. Here Frank Sieren of the DW.com points out that the agreement was not really about trade, as most of the gains of trade had already been realized according to experts. It was part of the "pivot to Asia" to maintain American dominance in the region, says Sieren. After China pulled together some Asian and European countries into its trade agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the U.S. pushed for TPP as a counterweight to the China sponsored trade zone. China says it will try to integrate the countries in TPP into the trade zone it has sponsored. President Trump has said that the U.S. is better off negotiating agreements with each country and not getting into multilateral trade agreements. He fought the election campaign on the basis of the opposition to TPP and trade agreements that unfairly hurt American workers. This could have provided the 110,000 margin of victory in the states suffering from the hollowing out in manufacturing such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania. A similar hollowing out in Ontario favored Justin Trudeau's Liberals against the Conservatives in Canada's election. ...

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Canada's foreign minister in a speech in parliament says Canada will now "set its own clear and sovereign course." This follows a speech by Angela Merkel of Germany saying " the times in which we could fully rely on others, they are somewhat over." Both countries plan to take a bigger role in international affairs as the U.S. under president Trump is seen as not being able to or not wanting to lead. The U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate change accord has shaken confidence in the U.S. role in international affairs in 2017.

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This behind the scenes account  shows how the NATO communique with policy declaration was prepared by July 6 before European leaders and Mr. Trump set foot in Brussels on July 11. It shows to what lengths key members in the Trump administration will go to achieve American objectives in preserving the NATO alliance. Particularly now that Russia is taking an aggressive stance to NATO near its borders.  General Mattis at Defense Department pushed for the 4 30's initiative which is about preparing a rapid deployment force to be ready by 2020. This is in the communique. Also in the communique is the setup of a command post in Norfolk, Virginia, ready to act to deploy forces in Europe. U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kailey Hutchinson, received the demand from National Security Adviser Bolton to have ambassadors from all countries work overtime to get the declaration done by July 6. Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General supported this effort. All were concerned that there should be no repeat of the mess that happened for the G-7 communique when at the last minute president Trump refused to sign on, leading to derisive comments about Canada's Justin Trudeau. It was seen as critical to preserve the sense of unity in the U.S. alliance with Europe. This time there was no disruption even though Mr. Trump acted unpredictably in Brussels. ...

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Hillary Clinton narrowly loses the Michigan primary to Bernie Sanders in March 2016, as the Sanders campaign focusses on Clinton's support for trade agreements that hurt American workers and lead to loss of manufacturing jobs. About three fifths of voters in the Michigan primary considered this a major issue. Many less educated younger workers see their job prospects diminish and wages drop with free trade that hurts American manufacturing jobs. Bill Clinton signed the NAFTA agreement with Mexico, and as a member of the Obama administration Clinton supported the Trans Pacific Trade Agreement, later opposing TPP when she left the cabinet. Sentiment against trade that hurts manufacturing jobs in the U.S. is strongest in midwestern states such as Michigan, Ohio and Illinois. This was also a major issue benefitting the Liberals under Justin Trudeau who won in Canada's industrial Ontario province which has suffered hollowing out and loss of manufacturing jobs under the Conservative Harper administration. In the U.S. the issue goes back to the Clinton Administration for two decades. New jobs created by Apple, Google, and other tech companies pale in comparison with the industrial jobs created in another era that benefitted working class families. This issue and high unemployment or under employment, lower wages for working class families, was a major issue in the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign. Widening wealth disparities, and lack of upward mobility, high tution and healthcare costs for ordinary families, dominated the campaign in the U.S....

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Experts say about 110,000 votes separate Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the three states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that decided the 2016 presidential election in the U.S. giving Trump the win. Post election reflection in the Democratic party points to a disconnect between the establishment in both parties and the white working class. It is described as something that was not thought enough about even though as pointed out in Lyrarc, and in The Washington Post by columnists, and in news coverage about the inequality movement long before Bernie Sanders appeared in 2015. In the period when banks were favored over millions of homeowners facing foreclosure in 2010-2014, the surging stock market and the zero to to half percent interest on savings that hurt savings of most of the working class and lower middle class without stock investments, and the continuing problems in communities facing job losses from trade for the third decade. The hollowing out of the regions in Ontario from job losses from the Canadian industry helped Justin Trudeau win the Canadian election. In this election it helped Trump in crucial midwestern states, combined with a degree of indifference shown by establishment Democrats. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean is planning to run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Bernie Sanders says he backs Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison to be the next chair of the DNC. Jeff Weaver, campaign manager for Sanders, says the problem lies in what has been clear for some time now "that the centrist wing of the democratic party has no standing with working class and middle class  voters in this country." In 2016 only 51% of union households supported Clinton the lowest since 1980, 43% supported Trump. Obama won 59% of union households in 2008 and 58% in 2012 to 40% for Republican Romney. Trump picked up 3% of union households, Clinton lost 7% of union households, creating about a 10 point gap that would be magnified in industrial states where union jobs are concentrated, for about 18% of the people who voted in the election, enough to create the shortfall in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsyslvania. Fed chairman Janet Yellen pointed out the problems at an Inequality conference in Boston in 2014, pretty stark in its reminder that inequality had surged to levels not seen since the depression of the thirties, with 62 million households having a net worth of $11,000. Krugman and other economists had pointed this out on the pages of the NYT. Yet the post election reflection in the media is as if this is some special insight when it was clear for all to see, and covered in depth in Lyrarc for years since 2008. There is voter fatigue after 8 years of one party in power as pointed out by Obama campaign strategist, David Axelrod. The loss of union enthusiasm made the task of  a third term for the Democratic party even more difficult.     ...

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Though it would appear that Poilievre is a new face in Canadian politics suddenly leading Justin Trudeau by 29% in some polls for prime minister, he is a young highly experienced Alberta politician since age 25. And is married to Anaida Galindo who immigrated at age 8 in 1995 from Caracas, Venezuela to Montreal. Pierre Poilievre is the adopted son of schoolteachers from Alberta. He was active in politics at the University of Calgary, Alberta, obtaining a BA in international relations and being part of  Reform party that considered the progressive Conservative Party unprincipled. He was elected to the Canadian parliament from Carleton-Nepean in 2004 for Conservative party and in subsequent elections won this seat by over 50% of the vote, becoming the youngest member of the Canadian parliament  at age 25. He was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to a ministry, to the prime minister, and Minister of state for Democratic Reform of the Canadian Senate, during the years  Stephen Harper of the Progressive Conservative Party was prime minister 2005-2015. Shadow Minister of Finance 2017-2022. Polievre has not hesitated to make his opinion felt and in 2022 he supported the truckers Freedom Convoy. Following that he was elected leader of the Opposition with Justin Trudeau as Liberal party prime minister.  He is married to Anaida Galindo in 2017 who worked for Canada's Senate in Ottawa. She had immigrated at age 8 years in 1995 with her parents from Caracas, Venezuela, where her father was a bank manager. ...

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Max Fisher of the NYT points out the unique approach taken by Canada in the U.S.-Canada relationship - to cultivate a grassroots network of Americans in legislatures, business, and at different levels of government. This has enabled the Trudeau government to build a relationship with president Trump, and at the same time have relationships at different levels of government and with business in the U.S. to tackle issues where the Trump administration has acted in ways unfavorable for Canada. Provincial governments in Ontario and Quebec lobbied against a New York state government provision for Buying American on state contracts worth over $100,000. By emphasizing the $10 billion in exports from New York to Ontario this lobbying persuaded the New York legislature to cancel the provision. Premier Trudeau's popularity helps and the proximity to the U.S. means Canadians can visit quickly and understand the U.S. as a close neighbor. Still Premier Kathleen Wynne of Ontario says Canadian businesses are nervous about the uncertainty from the Trump administration.   ...