Hard feelings melting under Mexican sun

As I took my afternoon jog along the Vegas-like strip of oddly-shaped hotels that line the beach at Cancun, I checked off all the usual signs that an international summit was going on. The security personnel posted at regular intervals along the route. The barricaded entry to the Fiesta Americana hotel, where the leaders were meeting. The squads of baby soldiers, riot gear at the ready. Only one thing was missing: the protesters. Where are the protesters? Where are the hundreds of chanting social deviants, rings through every skin-fold, with their claims to represent “civil society”? Where are the balaclavas, the slingshots, the fences and the tear gas? Ou sont les neiges d’antan? Time was when any gathering of two or more world leaders could be pretty well guaranteed to leave a trail of death and destruction behind it. Even a chance encounter between a couple of finance ministers was usually good for a decent bit of carnage. But that was in the great days of liberalizing ambition, before “neo-liberal” had joined “neo-conservative” as a term of abuse, when it was still possible to dream of a Multilateral Agreement on Investment, and the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a common economic space reaching “from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego,” was just around the corner. These days it’s all the leaders can do to preserve intact an agreement they’ve already signed. After September 11, trade liberals were forced onto the defensive: it was enough of a challenge just to keep existing trade flows from being choked off, given America’s security concerns, in particular. So the broad work of this year’s meeting of the three NAFTA partners is concerned, as before, with reconciling the two, trade and security, building on last year’s Security and Prosperity Partnership. Nonetheless, there are other agenda items, and new factors in play. One of these, of course, is Stephen Harper. The summit marks a coming-out party for him of sorts: his first meeting with George Bush, his first serious try at statesmanship, after the successful but largely symbolic trip to Afghanistan. He’s still a bit awkward, not quite sure of himself, at least in public -- unusually, for a man who on other occasions can present quite a commanding figure. As he himself has said, foreign policy is not his strong suit. Nor, emphatically, is the photo op: standing next to Mr. Bush and Vicente Fox in front of the Mayan pyramid at Chichen Itza, years younger than either and decked out in that, um, vest, he looked like the guy parking their cars. I rather doubt he gave the same impression behind the scenes. I would guess that he would get along rather well with Bush, in particular -- not only because of their ideological leanings, but their temperamental affinity. Both are no-nonsense, businesslike, taciturn. Both are decisive, risk-takers, unconcerned by appearances -- or those guard dogs of appearances, the press. It’s also clear that there is a rapid thawing under way in relations between the two countries. The target audience for that Afghanistan trip, with its bold assertion of a “leadership role” for Canada in the world, was not only domestic: it was also a signal to the Americans, that the feckless hand-wringer to the north had been transformed into a more robust and reliable ally. This is a neat trick. Mr. Harper has managed to make a more cooperative relationship with the Americans a matter of national pride: not the act of a craven supplicant, but a responsible adult -- hence his use of the word, “mature” -- confident enough in itself to have no need of adolescent displays of “independence.” Hence this week’s breathtaking démarche, the cutting off of funding to, and breaking off of relations with, the Hamas government in Palestine. In substance this was unsurprising: both the United States and Europe had been warning they would do the same, owing to Hamas’s refusal to disavow its annihilationist aims or terrorist methods. But we did it -- and we did it first. I cannot remember the last time a Canadian government, acting on its own, did the right thing in international affairs; or doing the right thing, did not wait for others to show the way. More usually, we did the wrong thing, last: witness our dithering into insignificance over Iraq. This cannot fail to have been noticed in Washington. And it appears to be about to bear fruit. I’m not suggesting any specific linkage, but it cannot be accidental that negotiations on softwood lumber are about to resume. And unless I miss my guess, to conclude, in agreement, not long after. We have been telling ourselves for years that it didn’t matter that our governments repeatedly and needlessly provoked the White House; that the Americans were too big to care, or too self-involved to notice, or too hard-headed to let it affect them one way or the other. The president, in any case, was too weak relative to Congress to do us any good, even if he was of a mind to. But it seems we were wrong. Mr. Bush is suddenly apprised of the issue, and determined to see it resolved. It’s the old carrot and stick. Now that the government of Canada has stopped poking him with a stick, he is inclined to reward it with a carrot.