US president Donald Trump has previously talked about making Canada the 51st state, Now, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is in Europe, and the president of the European Commission has proposed the country ‘associate membership’. In this edition, we ask what that means and how it differs from the close status afforded to Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and the UK – countries which Carney is also visiting ahead of his own Strasbourg speech Thursday before the European Parliament.
What are Canada’s options? What are Europe’s options as both the US and Russia are eyeing the Arctic? How closer can they really get when already ten EU nations – including France and Italy – have yet to ratify the CETA free trade agreement that is provisionally in effect with Ottawa?
The French – who have their own challenges with the far-right favourite to win next May’s presidential elections – will conclude this Canadian cycle when Emmanuel Macron hosts Carney in the tiny North Atlantic overseas territory of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Ahead of the UN General Assembly in New York, we ask: will Europeans take on the United States head-on like Canada? Or will they massage relations with the world's biggest superpower?
Produced by François Picard, Théophile Vareille, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.
