Trump casts a long shadow as world leaders gather for APEC and G20 summits
U.S. president-elect will be top of mind, even though he won't be there
Donald Trump's coming return to the White House hangs heavily over world leaders gathering this week in Peru for the APEC summit and then in Brazil for the G20 — two of the first international summits to be held since the U.S election.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to leave for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima today before moving on to the G20 in Rio de Janeiro, which begins Nov. 18.
While the official agendas for these summits are set months in advance, there's no doubt that Trump's win will affect both the substance and the tone of the discussions.
"Of course the election result changes what people are talking about," said a senior Canadian government official who is not authorized to speak publicly about the summits. "Especially on the margins, in the corridors. The talk will be the U.S. and leaders will compare notes."
The world now knows more about Trump, his views and his policy plans than it did the first time he was elected.
"This time, there's a lot more intelligence to be had. So as opposed to the first administration, there's more substance upon which to have discussions," said Carlo Dade, director of the trade infrastructure centre at the Canada West Foundation.
"I would expect there will be more context for conversations about how to respond."
APEC, made up of 21 member nations, is considered the leading economic forum in the Asia-Pacific region. Those countries cannot ignore president-elect Trump's promise to impose new global tariffs.
"A lot of the APEC countries are targets," said Dade, adding that all attendees will try to figure out where they rank on the U.S. "trade enemies list."
Canada's relatively new, ramped-up Indo-Pacific strategy makes APEC critical to its trade diversification plans. Experts say the summit offers an opportunity for nations to team up to protect their market share from a surge in American protectionism — but the temptation to break ranks will be great.
"Some say when the U.S. becomes unreliable and unpredictable, that other democracies, middle powers like Japan, Australia, Canada and others, should be coming together and cooperating more closely," said Vina Nadjibulla, vice-president of research and strategy at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.
"But we also see a tendency that everybody just tries to manage their relationship with the U.S. bilaterally, like everybody is just trying to survive the chaos as opposed to coordinating."
Getting nations to cooperate at the G20 — the assembly of the 20 largest economies in the world — is even more challenging. As the largest and most diverse gathering of states, the G20 brings together friends and rivals — and enemies.
"The G20 is the biggest table in international relations that includes such a diversity of the biggest players," said the unnamed senior government official. "They have in common that they are the world's largest economies, but it's such a diverse table that there are profound disagreements."
Russia's President Vladimir Putin will again not attend the G20 this year — freeing the host country from the awkward prospect of acting on an international warrant for Putin's arrest.
Two other countries with which Canada currently has chilly relations — China and India — will be represented at the G20. China's President Xi Jinping is slated to attend both APEC and the G20, while India's President Narendra Modi is going to the G20.
Neither Modi nor Xi are expected to have scheduled talks or any personal interactions with Trudeau at the summits.
Trudeau could have what's known as a "pull-aside" — or even a formal bilateral meeting — with U.S. President Joe Biden, who is scheduled to be at both summits. That meeting might be more of a farewell than something forward-looking.
Biden has supported the recent goals of the hosts of both APEC and the G20. He has committed to backing Brazil's hallmark G20 initiative to fight global hunger and poverty. Brazil also has pushed to reform global governance institutions such at the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the UN Security Council. It's not known whether Trump would honour Biden's commitments.
"Biden and most of his G20 colleagues will actually want to do even more to advance these goals because they know they've got the best-before date of only two months," said John Kirton, director of the G20 Research Group at the University of Toronto. "So they'll want to get as much of what they want to do before Donald Trump becomes president."
Despite being primarily trade and economic summits, both the G20 and APEC meetings will see closed-doors discussions of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and their impacts on the global economy, supply chains and security.
Trump's disdain for global alliances and his demands for allies to pay more for their defence have many countries rattled. Some fear that China will interpret Trump's lack of concern for Taiwan's independence as permission to invade the island nation.
Experts say Canada could play a role in these discussions — within reason.
"The reality is, we're mid-sized … we're certainly not in the first tier of countries. Canada is never going to be a military superpower," said retired lieutenant-general Guy Thibault, chair of the Conference of Defence Associations Institute and former vice-chief of the defence staff.
"But there's absolutely no reason why we ought not to be a development superpower and use our diplomatic capacity."
With just weeks to go until Trump takes office, many fear that anything accomplished at these summits could be overturned or abandoned by the incoming administration. Others say it's far too soon to panic.
'"This is the work. You sit down. You keep making progress. No one is thinking fatalistically," said the senior government official. "There will be a transition period … but the show always goes on."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
