Doing the Continental. David Dyment
you can never explain what actually happened,” and “If anyone tells you he knows where a particular decision was made in Washington, he is either a fool or a liar.”[3]
Once one considers the sheer size and scope of the U.S. and the division of powers between the president, the Congress, and the judiciary, the concept of building political capital in Washington is of limited value. And yet our pundits and politicians — including senior ministers — insist on analyzing and acting on the basis of a false understanding. Perhaps it’s because their egos get in the way of appreciating both our country’s insignificance and their personal insignificance in how decisions get made in the U.S. capital. Too often senior ministers think that because they have a relationship with their U.S. counterpart that Canada’s policy needs to reflect the views of their American interlocutors.
The U.S. is simply not keeping track of whether Canada has been helpful. Our ministers are stroking their egos and making poor decisions for Canada if they allow their judgment to be clouded by misunderstanding how significant they are to their American counterparts. Think of the U.S. president, as an example, who spends not days but only hours each year thinking about Canada.
The U.S. is preoccupied with so many issues that as long as Canada doesn’t work actively to counter U.S. interests, we don’t register in their thoughts. What Canada does or doesn’t do is more irrelevant in the American political system than we realize. We are taken for granted. It’s a mistake to think that we need to play a “war-fighting” role in Afghanistan because we didn’t go to Iraq. A former chief of staff to our minister of defence says the decision to play our current role in Afghanistan was due to the minister and other government leaders feeling we had to assuage U.S. opinion because we hadn’t supported Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD). In fact, the U.S. was going ahead with BMD regardless of what Canada did and wasn’t that concerned about the Canadian decision.
Moreover, there is no spillover from such a strictly military issue into U.S. economic policy. A dramatic example of this is the U.S. Congress placing stiff tariffs on U.K. steel despite U.K. participation and leadership in Iraq and Afghanistan. And textiles from Pakistan, a key ally of the U.S. in the fight against terrorism, continue to face prohibitive U.S. tariffs. The U.S. is a vast, self-absorbed, and segmented world.
One should not forget the nature of the U.S. bureaucracy in all of this. It is massive and, like Congress, lacks cohesion and reflects divergent and competing views and opinions. So, like Congress, the U.S. bureaucracy is not going to turn as one corporate entity and promote or punish Canada.
This is how Michael Kergin, a former Canadian ambassador to the U.S., put it to me: “Think of at least three kinds of events — political, economic, and military. Three parts of the jungle. The three constituencies are very different. Be skeptical about linkages among them.”[4]
The sheer size and power of the U.S., combined with its system of government, leads to decisions that affect other countries. But these decisions do not make the U.S. bad. Not honouring a NAFTA dispute settlement panel ruling does not really make the U.S. bad; it’s a reflection of its heft, combined with the nature of its Congressional system of government.
We are not going to change either the sheer power of the U.S. or its Congressional system of government, with the prerogatives of powerful senators and members of the House of Representatives to protect their constituents’ jobs and money.
The NAFTA Dispute Settlement Mechanism does not change that, but it does help to condition the outcome of disputes, such as those over softwood lumber. Canada did not get everything it wanted, and was awarded by the dispute settlement mechanism, but in late 2006 it did agree to 80 percent of what it was due, with approximately $1 billion held back from the $5 billion collected in inappropriate penalties.
Interests in our self-absorbed, segmented neighbour often work in alignment with Canadian interests to determine outcomes. On soft wood, part of the pressure in the U.S. to resolve the issue was from the U.S. National Association of Home Builders and from the American soft wood companies that own 40 to 45 percent of the Canadian industry.
The Prime Minister and the President
While we may on occasion want our prime minister to express indignation to the president, there is not a lot the president can do — are we asking him to change the U.S. system of government and decision making? A close associate of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien told me of a meeting he was at in the Oval Office, where former President George W. Bush said to Chrétien: “If you can’t convince Senator Baucus from Montana, who is the head of the Commerce Committee, then I’d like to help but there’s not much I can do.” At best, all the president can do is use some of his limited political capital with Congress. And he normally needs all of that to advance his administration’s policies. When we ask the president to make the Canadian position part of his policies, how does that help his survival and success which depend on his sway among Americans and American interests, not among Canadians and Canadian interests?
As former Canadian ambassador to the U.S., Michael Kergin says, “The president operates in a free market economy. Congress is supreme in trade policy, the president is making all the time, all kinds of deals with Congress. So how much of his capital is he going to use in an area in which he has little power to help another country?”
The relationship does not at all work on the basis that if you lose favour in the White House you pay a big price. It is better to have good executive to executive relations, but so much of U.S. decision making is associated with Congress.
Speculating on relations between the two leaders is something of a parlour game. Not infrequently, I’m asked by the media to comment on aspects of the Canada-U.S. relationship. Their favourite question is, “How is our prime minister getting along with the president, and what does this mean?”
As you know, here’s my answer: “Their relationship is but a part of a broad and deep interaction between the two countries. Moreover, the president doesn’t have that much power in our relations with the U.S. He constantly has to consider Congress. And Congress has jurisdiction over a lot of the issues like U.S. trade laws that preoccupy Canadians.”
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