Los Angeles, June 9: It’s an itinerary worthy of Hollywood: the governor of California, the man who runs Google and the president of the United States.
Day 2 at the Summit of the Americas is shaping up to be a busy one for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
After he meets with President Joe Biden and holds a news conference with Gov. Gavin Newsom, Trudeau will take in the summit’s first leader-level plenary.
He’s also meeting with the president of Argentina before sitting down with Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company.
On Wednesday, Trudeau spent the day talking to Latin American and Caribbean leaders about helping their countries achieve their sustainable development goals.
Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, says today might be the day to put Canada’s own needs on the table.
The world is changing … and as a response, new alignments are taking shape,” said Hyder, who wants Ottawa to get more assertive with the U.S. on bilateral issues.
Supply chains are changing in real time, thanks to the lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and governments are realizing that the private sector has a key role to play, he added.
On Wednesday, Trudeau spent the day focused on the ever-present challenges facing countries in Latin America and the Caribbean — challenges that manifest in the U.S. and Canada in the form of economic constraints and migratory pressure.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley described a “triple crisis” in her country: the lasting economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, soaring fuel and food costs exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, and climate impacts that are felt most acutely in tiny island nations like hers.
Mottley suggested that it’s time the rest of the world began taking those concerns more seriously.
“We don’t expect things to change immediately,” Mottley said.
“But what we expect is fairness, what we expect is transparency, what we expect is that just as we want to see people here, we want people to see, feel and hear us as well.”
Mottley and Trudeau later took part in a roundtable discussion with leaders from Chile, Belize, Ecuador and Jamaica, where they heard complaints about financial institutions that could be doing more to support growth in the developing world.
It’s vital for democracy to thrive in small and developing nations, and for their citizens to share in the rewards and realize the benefits.
