OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greeted U.S. President Barack Obama with a warm hug Wednesday as the two prepared to sit down with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto for the North American Leaders' Summit.
"Thanks for the hospitality," Obama could be heard saying to Trudeau, before moving behind a security curtain to sign a waiting guest book.
"It's good to see Mounties around," the president said. "It always makes me feel safe."
Indeed, security was an ever-present theme throughout the morning as the iconic Boeing VC-25, better known as Air Force One, touched down at the Ottawa airport for what is widely expected to be Obama's last visit to Canada as president.
He was greeted by Governor General David Johnston, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion and a large group of officials and dignitaries.
A towering convoy of black limousines and SUVs — including the heavily armoured presidential Cadillac nicknamed "The Beast" — ferried the president to the National Gallery of Canada, not far from Parliament Hill.
Obama held a bilateral meeting with Pena Nieto before the pair were to sit down with Trudeau for what's colloquially known as the Three Amigos summit, which is expected to focus on the themes of clean energy and climate change.
The Mexican president, who has been on a state visit to Canada since Monday, is to sign on to a Canada-U.S. pledge to cut methane emissions 40 to 45 per cent below 2012 levels by 2025.
North America accounts for about 20 per cent of global emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that the Pembina Institute estimates accounts for a fifth of all man-made global warming to date.
The trio will also announce plans to achieve 50 per cent clean power generation across North America by 2025, including renewable energy, nuclear power, carbon capture and storage and increased energy efficiency.
Canada has over 80 per cent clean electricity generation, by that measure — North America as a whole is at 37 per cent — meaning the plan could put Canada in a lucrative position to export more power to the U.S.
The three leaders were scheduled to hold a joint news conference at the conclusion of the summit later Wednesday.
From there, Obama was scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with Trudeau before capping his daylong visit to the national capital with an address to Parliament.
On Tuesday, Trudeau and Pena Nieto cleared away long-standing trade and travel irritants: Canada will lift its controversial visa requirement for Mexican visitors before the end of the year while Mexico will end restrictions on Canadian beef imports.
They touted the relationship between their countries as a model of political and economic co-operation, a sharp contrast to the growing strains of protectionism and isolation sweeping the United States and Britain — a theme that was widely expected to dominate Wednesday's summit
Also expected to be part of the mix was none other than Donald Trump: the presumptive Republican nominee to replace Obama delivered Tuesday his most explicit threat to smash the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Trump said he would inform Mexico and Canada of his desire to immediately renegotiate a more favourable deal and if they refused significant concessions, he threatened to withdraw from it all together.
As Obama was winging his way to Canada, White House spokesman Josh Earnest played down the remarks, saying NAFTA has already been renegotiated in the form of the Trans Pacific Partnership.
"It includes, obviously, countries in the Asia Pacific as well, but it includes Canada and Mexico and it raises standards related to the environment and to labour conditions in all of the countries that have signed the agreement," Earnest said.
"It also makes those higher standards enforceable in a way that they weren't in NAFTA. So the president promised in 2007 and 2008 — this got a lot of attention — that he would work, that he would engage with our partners to make changes to those agreements to make them more fair to U.S. workers and the broader U.S. economy. That's exactly what we've succeeded in doing."
Trump also made it clear Tuesday he's no fan of the TPP either, calling it "a continuing rape of our country."
