Biden administration keeps the northern border closed
Could it be that Washington Democrat elites distrust Ottawa socialist Liberals?
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October 9, 2021
As promised in the first edition of BORDERPOL Substack.com here are some armchair observations on why the Biden administration keeps the border doors closed to Canada while leaving the southern border doors wide open.
The excuse is COVID but in my view the truths lie elsewhere.
Economic interests of the Democratic party do not align with those of the Trudeau government. Under the pretext of supporting climate change ideologies, the first thing Biden did when he assumed office was to close the Keystone/XL pipeline. In one fell swoop he put hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of work. While the closure killed thousands of jobs in the US it was a wound to the American economy but for western Canada it was a terminal blow.
The Trump era policy of repatriating jobs to the US from Canada has continued unabated. The auto industry is a prime example of that. The Biden administration has not undone any parts of the USMCA free trade agreement that Trump created.
Environmental and foreign policy interests of the Trudeau Liberals and the Biden Democrats look similar on the surface with all the jibber jabber about meeting the Paris Accord demands and mutual security interests. The view from Washington is that Ottawa is a mediocre bit player on both these portfolios. Witness Canada’s inability to meet its own climate targets, failure to meet promises made to its indigenous populations, its weak and deteriorating military capabilities as well as the recent debacle with China over Huawei. The leftist President has excised his socialist neighbor from the 5Eyes for all practical purposes while the US, Australia and the United Kingdom move on with new alliances sans Canada.
Curiously one would think that a leftist Biden administration would embrace the Trudeau government. Afterall Trudeau has been the darling of the globalist media and technocracies of Silicon Valley. Heck, the Vice President spent her formative years going to school in Canada, surely that would be an asset to Ottawa. Former President Obama even promoted (interfered) in the re-election of Trudeau during last month’s federal election via Twitter.
It appears that the Biden Democrats see few negative consequences associated with an open border policy with Mexico where literally millions of illegal border crossings by migrants from over 50 countries have occurred since January 6, 2021, but have serious concerns with folks from that big pink part on the map of North America.
Is it because since 2015 its northern neighbor is being reengineered by the Trudeau government into a post nation grouping of experimental communities – not a sovereign state?
It is because Canada is increasingly a weak federation of inward-looking societies exhibiting signs of political and economic dysfunction?
Is it because their globalist corporate/technocratic supporters are driving the closed border policy for strategic economic purposes?
Or, perhaps Susan Rice has advised the President to keep the northerners at arm’s length while the administration figures out how to deal with a weak and unethical leadership that has Wokism at its ideological center and intersectionality as its governing principle.
In the meantime it could be another winter at home for Canada’s snowbirds.
Post script October 12, 2021
WASHINGTON, Oct 12 (Reuters) - The United States will lift restrictions at its land borders with Canada and Mexico for fully vaccinated foreign nationals in early November, ending historic curbs on non-essential travelers in place since March 2020 to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement the administration next month "will begin allowing travelers from Mexico and Canada who are fully vaccinated for COVID-19 to enter the United States for non-essential purposes, including to visit friends and family or for tourism, via land and ferry border crossings."