Daily US Times: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has praised US President Joe Biden for rejoining the Paris climate accord during their first bilateral meeting, saying: “US leadership has been sorely missed over the past years.”
Mr Trudeau added: “And I have to say as we were preparing the joint rollout of the communique on this, it’s nice when the Americans are not pulling out all the references to climate change and instead adding them in.”
The meeting between the two leaders held virtually between the Roosevelt Room at the White House and Trudeau in his Ottawa office because of the coronavirus pandemic – was Joe Biden’s first with a foreign counterpart since taking office,
President Biden returned Trudeau’s compliments, saying: “The United States has no closer friend, no closer friend, than Canada.”
After talking for about two hours, Biden and Trudeau emerged and said they planned to work closely together to beat the pandemic and combat climate change, with a goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
The Canadian Prime Minister also thanked Biden for reiterating US support for the release of two Canadians held by China, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.
Biden said: “Human beings are not bartering chips. We’re going to work together until we get their safe return.”
It was unclear whether Trudeau raised the idea of allowing Canada to buy vaccines from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer’s manufacturing facility in Michigan. Canada is struggling to vaccinate its population is getting vaccines shipped from a Pfizer plant in Belgium.
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