- Democracy is the best form of government we know.

Doesn't mean that it's pretty.

It's something you have to fight to maintain.

And I think that's what's happening in Canada.

I think that's what's happening in the United States.

I think it's what's happening all around the world.

[bright upbeat music] - Hello and welcome to "GZERO World".

I'm Ian Bremmer, and on today's episode, I am taking GZERO north of the border to look at the most important trade relationship for the United States, and an increasingly important geopolitical one too.

It's Canada.

Yes, Canada is much more than maple syrup, ice hockey, and poutine.

No, I didn't say Putin, I said poutine.

Not geopolitically relevant.

But our friendly neighbor to the north is America's biggest trading partner and we share the world's longest international border, also, it's undefended.

Today we've got two diplomats for the price of one Canadian dollars.

I'm sitting down with Canadian Ambassador to the United States, Kirsten Hillman and the U.S.

Ambassador to Canada, David Cohen for a deep dive into U.S.-Canada relations.

Later we'll get into North American defense, the Indo-Pacific, and that Chinese spy balloon with Canadian defense Minister Anita Anand.

Don't worry, I've also got your Puppet Regime.

- Dun dun.

- But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

- [Announcer] Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Prologis, and by.

[soft upbeat music] [bright upbeat music] - It was a meeting two years in the making.

Normally but not always, Canada is the first foreign trip a U.S. president makes after taking office.

Now for Trump, it was Saudi Arabia.

And then Joe Biden became president but that was the middle of a pandemic, so the usual meeting of North American neighbors was delayed.

And after a few rocking years of tension with the previous administration, both leaders said it was well worth the wait.

- Americans and Canadians are two people, two countries in my view sharing one heart.

No two nations on earth are bound by such close ties, friendship, family, commerce, and culture.

- Well, most culture.

- I like your teams except the Leafs.

[audience booing] - [Ian] At a press conference, Prime minister Justin Trudeau said the feeling was mutual.

- In this serious time with all the challenges we face, we're doubling down on our partnership and on our friendship.

- This came just days after a meeting between two very different world leaders, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian president Vladimir Putin who declared their growing partnership will lead to a new world order.

Showcase the strength of their democratic alliance, Biden and Trudeau announced an agreement on migration ahead of the meeting.

Both countries are struggling with a huge wave of migrants arriving at both borders.

Nearly 40,000 asylum seekers crossed into Canada from the United States in 2022, the most since Canada began tracking in 2017.

The agreement allows Canada to send migrants who come in through unofficial border crossings like Roxham Road between New York and Quebec back to the United States and the U.S. can do the same.

In exchange, Canada agreed to accept 15,000 more asylum seekers a year from across the Western hemisphere.

But there are other thornier issues that still need to be worked out.

Like the situation in Haiti where violent gangs control most of the country, basically replacing the government.

The United States has been pressuring Canada to lead military efforts to stabilize Haiti and restore order but Canada's not exactly thrilled about that idea given how badly passed foreign interventions have gone.

So instead they've agreed to $100 million in aid for Haiti's police and new sanctions on gang leaders.

And while I'm personally discomforted, they didn't settle the debate about which moose reigns supreme and I think we all know where I stand on that issue, Biden and Trudeau did talk about trade, security, climate change, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and increasingly strong concerns about Chinese influence.

All these issues were on their agenda and of course, mine too.

I sat down with Canadian Ambassador to the United States, Kirsten Hillman and the U.S.

Ambassador to Canada, David Cohen to talk with them about news from Biden's trip north and the top priorities in the U.S.-Canada relationship.

Ambassadors, Cohen, Hillman, thank you so much for joining me today.

- It's great to be here.

- Thanks for having us on.

- A friendly relationship, no question, nine out of 10 Americans and Canadians feel like there's a strong alliance between the U.S. and Canada I want to talk about trajectory.

About a third of Canadians say that they fear the relationship is deteriorating.

Almost 20% Americans feel the same way.

I'm wondering why you think there is that perspective in a relationship that frankly is about as integrated as one could have between two G7 countries.

Please?

- Well, I'll be honest, I don't know where that perception would come from.

I think that maybe there's a sense that we haven't been able to communicate well enough to Canadians, I speak for Canadians, maybe Americans too, that this partnership is going to be now and into the future a source of strength for both of us to get through these troubled times.

I think that that's what we need to get out there more and perhaps people focus on small things instead of the big picture.

And the big picture is there's no two countries that are sort of more integrated as you say, but more there for each other than Canada and the U.S. and I think the visit recently just underlined that.

We did have a visit, it was Biden's first here given COVID, not a surprise What needed to happen, what did Biden need to accomplish when he was here?

So I think what the president needed to accomplish is exactly what he did accomplish and it's really to reinforce what Kirsten just said which is how important Canada is to the U.S.-Canada relationship I think only the President could come here and make crystal clear how important Canada is to the United States in this relationship.

As he put it, and he put it this way in 2021 but I was glad to hear him say it three or four times, the United States simply has no better, stronger, more important friend, partner, or ally than Canada.

And he needed to deliver that message because I think that is the central element of the U.S.-Canada relationship is how close the relationship is, how important it is and how much of a two-way relationship it is.

Now one of the Trump administration's biggest successes in foreign policy was USMCA When we talk about industrial policy, we usually talk about protectionism, we usually talk about support of a domestic industry.

Is it fair that between USMCA and now IRA, that industrial policy really equates to the North American integrated economy?

Does the Biden administration see it that way Or is it first and foremost about American jobs and then we have to pay attention to Canada and Mexico?

- So when I hear the word protectionism under the Biden-Harris administration, I bristle a little bit because it's different than it was in the prior administration which had an expressly protectionist approach to foreign trade into foreign relations.

That's not Joe Biden.

And I think he demonstrated that time and again during the visit to Canada that he very much subscribes to the view, if you will, the rising tide lifts all boats view that when the United States invests, Canada will benefit and Mexico will benefit as well.

And he does bring a North American perspective to the table.

- So Kirsten, when you and I sit down, we talk a lot about Asia-Pacific, we talk a lot about China, In the context of three, five years ago where there was a lot of conversation in Canada about how much do we want to be aligned with the U.S. on China, how much we wanna be taking a slightly different path.

The Biden-Trudeau meeting certainly seemed as if there was no daylight between the U.S. and Canada on China.

Is Canada really like almost 100% with the U.S. on China orientation?

- What I would say is this Canada and Canadians have had an experience over the last number of years with the detention, unlawful detention of the Michaels in China that has changed public perception of that country and I think of our relationship with that country.

But that being said, it's still a country that is recognized as obviously, a very important player in the world.

And so we're going to have to find ways to work with them in a variety of areas including on climate change and including on, we hosted for them the Biodiversity Convention in the fall late last year because of the COVID policies, they couldn't have it there.

So we are keen to try to have lines of communication where we can on issues where we need to work together.

But I think it's fair to say that when it comes to human rights violations, when it comes to national security issues, we are, Canadians are feeling like we need to make sure that we are as closely aligned as we can be with our key partners and the U.S. is primary among them.

- Canada and the United States have both experienced a lot more political division at home over the past few years.

As the smaller economy, the economy that it gets overwhelmed in some ways with American media and trade and the rest, have you felt that there is an export of division from the United States to Canada?

So many people say, when the U.S. sneezes, the Canadians catch a cold.

Is there some of that going on right now?

- I think it's really hard to say, Canadians certainly consume American media.

The French Canadian Society consumes French media from France, right?

We consume a variety of different medias and I think that we are seeing across the globe, at least in the medias that our Canadians are consuming that kind of sense of unease and maybe a little bit of a feeling of unsettledness is a bit everywhere.

France is a good example but the issues that you're talking about are present and have been present and increasingly present in all of the world's democracies over the last five plus years.

I mean, France, yes, United States, yes, Canada, yes but look at what happened in Germany with demonstrations out on the streets.

Look at Israel a few years ago, right up to today, democracy is under challenge and President Biden said this right in the run-up to the midterm elections last year which is that democracy is the best form of government we know.

Doesn't mean that it's pretty, there can be ugliness around that but it is still in the end the best structure of government that we are aware of and it's something you have to fight for.

You can't just relax and say, "Oh, we don't have to worry about it, "democracy's always been here, it'll be be there."

It's something you have to fight to maintain and I think that's what's happening in Canada, I think that's what's happening in the United States, I think that's what's happening all around the world as an attempt to fight back the elements of extremism that are attacking democracy and the fundamental tenets of democracy throughout democratic nations all around the world.

- As we're talking, Trump now, the first U.S. president in history to have been indicted, I wonder how it affects your job as you're thinking ahead to 2024.

To what extent you feel like U.S. commitments to Canada in the future are just fundamentally more challenging for you to make in an environment where the future direction of the United States might be so very different from where it is presently.

So I don't want to be glib but it doesn't really affect my job at all since I don't and can't have anything to do with 2024 politics.

Not my job, I spend a lot of time trying to stay away from it.

The challenge that Donald Trump presents to democracy in the United States and to relations between the United States and Canada has been omnipresent, having nothing to do with him being indicted.

In the unlikely event, in my view, that there is a change in government back to Donald Trump or a Donald Trump equivalent, the more we can embed the strong practices that we're talking about, that we're working on, the more we can embed it in our culture, the more we can embed it in our mutual governments, the more success we can show as a result of those linkages, the harder it will be to unravel.

- Kirsten, we're here in Canada, you get the last question, which is if there's one thing that doesn't exist presently in the U.S.-Canadian relationship that you would like to see, it'd be what?

- I think I would like to see back to maybe where we started in terms of taking this relationship and projecting it into the future.

So in addressing strategic vulnerabilities, whether they are with respect to certain kinds of products or our supply chains or semiconductors or national security and the Arctic and our shared geography, a more immediate understanding that we are only gonna get there together and we are only going to be as strong as we need to be by always staying alive.

Ultimately, the strength of this relationship has to be born by the millions and millions of Canadians and Americans who interact every day in business and academics and our law enforcement, our militaries, our intelligence services, it has to be born by them because the political wins change.

And the way we are going to sustain the huge advantages that we both get as countries from this relationship is by giving all those relationships the strongest roots we can possibly give them and I would like the people that have those roots, who are responsible for the relationship to recognize the value and the power of what they do because I'm not sure that's always true.

And especially, and I'll speak again for Canadians, I don't think Canadians appreciate the extent to which we are vital to Americans and I would like to see that.

- Completely agree with what Kirsten just said about the way to make this relationship enduring and I can't help but think about the announcement last week that for the first time in history, a Canadian will be joining a U.S. space flight to and beyond the moon in our new Artemis mission.

And what an incredible statement that is about the relationship that exists in the science and technology and innovation area between Canada and the United States and it's not so easy to unravel.

It's something that's enduring no matter who the president of the United States is and so, I think that comes right out of the visit, it's consistent with the messaging of the president and the Prime Minister but it's a fantastic statement and one, as Kirsten says, that should help to rally Canadians around the value of this relationship from a Canadian perspective.

- That's something we'll have for the future.

- [Kirsten] Exactly.

- So with that, Kirsten Hillman, David Cohen, thank you so much for joining.

- Thank you for having us.

[bright upbeat music] - Up next, it was the balloon seen around the world or at least from Montana and it raised big questions about national security both on the ground and above the clouds.

Here's my conversation with Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand.

- Minister Anand, thanks so much for joining me today.

- Thanks for having me.

- It was about a month, just bit of more a month ago that we had this significant U.S.-Canada balloon incident.

And at the time, I remember you saying that you would be very careful about making assumptions at this point.

Time has passed, we've learned a lot.

What can you now say?

- Well, we're cooperating very closely with the United States in terms of the data that it is retrieving from the downed balloon off of its eastern coast.

And we, in terms of the suspected balloon that was above Yukon, were not able to retrieve debris given how remote and rugged the terrain was.

But having said all of that, we do have in place our Indo-Pacific strategy and that calls for us to be eyes wide open on China, for us to make sure we're supporting a free and open Indo-Pacific, for us to be cognizant and challenge China where we need to and cooperate where we must.

These are kinda the guideposts for our relationship with China now inherent in our Indo-Pacific strategy.

- Is there a change in the nature of the relationship between the U.S. and Canada and China on the security on the defense side?

Has it significantly deteriorated over the course of the past month?

- Well, let's just take a look at what is happening in the Indo-Pacific.

In the recent past, China has threatened the safety and security of our RCAF aircraft by buzzing our planes.

So I would say that we are watching activities in the Indo-Pacific very carefully.

We are adding a third frigate, for example.

We are going to be undertaking training exercises with our partners and allies.

We are going to be working with them in cybersecurity also.

All of this is under the umbrella of our Indo-Pacific strategy and the reason is that the global environment has changed.

We are seeing the world become increasingly dark and that relates not only to Russia's further invasion of Ukraine but also increasingly aggressive moves by China.

- You're very engaged through NATO, there's been a lot of push to do more for Ukraine.

Where do you think the coalition is heading on the Russia, Ukraine issue over the coming, say three, six months because we know for the last year we've seen a lot of escalation in terms of what the West is doing and also in terms of how the Russians are perceiving the West.

- Well, I think we have to start with the very fundamental point that NATO has never been more united than it is now.

And that Putin thought that Europe would freeze in the dark.

In reality, NATO has become more strong and I see that around the NATO table every time we meet and indeed, defense ministers from NATO countries and beyond, over 50 countries meet monthly as part of the defense contact group organized by Secretary Austin.

And our collaboration and our unity is palpable whenever we meet.

For example, we sit around the table and we examine the capabilities of every country and we seek to compliment each other.

So we are very much front and center in terms of aid to Ukraine, having put $1 billion of aid on the table thus far but also in terms of training on equipment and capabilities.

- But we've seen the Germans, for example, in response to this invasion, we need to have a turning point, we gotta spend 2% of GDP on defense.

Many countries have been significantly ramping that up.

Japan has even made that announcement.

Canada's still very far from that.

Given what's happening with Russia and Ukraine, given the role that Canada's playing in NATO and with Russia and Ukraine, why aren't we seeing a faster step up on the defense side?

- Well, what you are seeing is an increase in our defense spending in a way that is unprecedented.

We are on an upward trajectory, we're increasing our defense spending by 70%.

In fact, beginning in 2017, we committed $8 billion in our last federal budget in 2022.

We're NATO's sixth largest defense budget.

And on top of all that, put on the table almost $40 billion for NORAD modernization last year.

So the trajectory is upward, Ian, and that's very positive.

It was viewed quite positively when President Biden visited us two weeks ago.

- When you look at the debate that's being had right now in the United States on TikTok which is being also considered a national security issue, is that something you think the Canadians need to take up?

- Well, we have banned TikTok on all federal government devices.

I have four children of my own and have told them that they're not to be- - Have you banned it with your four children?

- Yes, I have.

- Understood - And I'll just say that it's extremely important for us to be aligned.

We need to make sure that we are very much aligned with our allies, especially as the global strategic environment continues to change and the world becomes increasingly dark.

- So if the Americans end up either making a ban or saying they have to sell it, and as a consequence they're effectively banned, not just from government but we're talking as a country, you think the Canadians would have to follow that?

Well, we are very much aligned on security issues, generally speaking.

And I will say that we have the communication security establishment here in Canada that is extremely close with the NSA and we do look at each policy proposal in combination with what the United States is doing.

- One thing I wanna ask you about, which I haven't discussed earlier on the show is Haiti, because not so far, doesn't have a government, right?

I mean, basically run by gangs at this point.

The Americans have been pressing Canada pretty hard, though it was friendly with the Biden-Trudeau meeting on couldn't you do something, couldn't you provide some troops, provide some policing to help.

When Canada gets that message from the US, do you sort of shrug and go, "Hey, hey, what about you guys?"

- Well, I think what our view is that we have to be focusing on Haitian-led solutions.

As you know, we've made a number of decisions relating to sanctions against Haitians as well as $100 million for the Haitian National Police in terms of providing equipment for them.

Because the support that we provide has to be support that is welcomed and that's why we are being very prudent about the support that we are putting on the ground and making sure that we are collaborating with multiple partners in the region.

- It's hard to be Haitian-led when we don't know who's running Haiti, right?

I mean, you're not doing polls down there.

- But that's why we need to be prudent.

We can't simply throw money at a problem and expect it to go away and that is important not only in this instance, but across the board.

Whether we're talking about continental defense or aid to Ukraine or the Indo-Pacific, we have to be very thoughtful, very careful about what we are doing with our resources.

Now, I can't let you go without one final question about the border because of course, that's another piece of incremental progress and here the Canadians are having some challenges with Americans and others that are coming over and there was a willingness of Canada to take a fair number as well as to ship a fair number back.

And how hard was this to get done?

- Well, it was part of the cooperation and the spirit of collaboration that really imbued the visit of President Biden to Canada.

The fact that we could extend the Safe Third Country Agreement to the entire border, the longest undefended border in the world and to ensure also that we will be accepting more and more migrants now that we have this Safe Third Country Agreement applying across the board.

- So you're saying we don't need to build a wall, is that what you're telling me?

- I'm saying we don't need to build a wall.

- That's good, that's very good Minister Anand, wonderful to see you again.

- Thanks so much, Ian.

[bright upbeat music] - And now to Puppet Regime.

We're south of the border, at least from our perspective.

Here in Canada, Trump finally became a law and order president, literally.

- Dun, dun In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate but equally important groups.

The police who investigate crime and me, the greatest president in this country's ever known, currently running for my third term.

Call now, give me your money.

If you donate now, I'll give you a free bobblehead of me and Stormy Daniels out on a- - That's our show this week, come back next week.

And if you like what you see or even if you don't, but you're like, "Hey, those Canadians are crazy, "what else are they going to do next week?"

Check us out at gzeromedia.com.

[bright upbeat music] [bright upbeat music] [bright upbeat music] - [Announcer] Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Prologis, and by.

[bright upbeat music] [logo chiming]