After the Liberal Party's election win, Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to meet with President Trump, as China signals openness to improving relations with Canada. Associate Professor Saeed Khan of Wayne State University discusses whether this could mark a turning point for softer diplomacy.
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00:00Shortly after Canada's Liberal Party scored a stunning comeback victory in last week's elections,
00:06Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to meet U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House later today.
00:12This also comes as China says it is open to improving ties with Canada.
00:17Associate Professor Syed Han from Wayne State University weighs in on whether this could mark a turning point for softer diplomacy.
00:25Well, I think that when it comes to Canada, there is going to be a distinction here.
00:31Usually what happens is one country will alternate between using the proverbial carrot and the proverbial stick.
00:38But now what we find is that China seems perfectly willing to use the carrot,
00:45while the United States seems to be much more interested, at least with President Trump, in using the stick.
00:51Will, with the election of Prime Minister Carney, serve as a moment for negotiation?
01:00Will there be a softening of the rhetoric?
01:03After all, here you have two countries which have been long-standing allies sharing the longest contiguous border
01:11of any two countries in the world, one that is a very peaceful and a very productive relationship.
01:18But the realities now with geopolitics are that if the economics fit, and particularly for a country as vast and as versatile as Canada,
01:28when it comes to its natural resources, its raw materials, certainly things that China would crave without the kind of static,
01:38the tension or the nuisance that is coming out of Washington, it seems as though they definitely have the upper hand.
01:45One thing that China certainly enjoys is having farmland with resources for whatever food supplies it needs.
01:58It has said very recently that it can be completely self-sufficient.
02:02It does not have to rely on American imports at all.
02:05But certainly it would benefit from Canadian imports to its country.
02:12If it is able to go ahead and secure that, knowing that, of course, there's quite a bit of Chinese entrepreneurship in Canada,
02:21especially some of its major cities like Vancouver and Toronto,
02:24that provides a little bit of an edge for Beijing with which to operate.
02:30And if that is the case, we may see a shift.
02:34It depends on how massive that shift is and how much of that shift may be irreversible
02:40when it comes to American efforts, either by Trump or his successors,
02:44to salvage the relationship between Ottawa and Washington.
02:47It depends on how massive of it does, the CHEWW,
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