US President Barack Obama and Canada’s new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have lavished praise on each other during the first official visit by a Canadian leader in nearly 20 years.
A lavish state dinner was held for Trudeau and his wife Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau, featuring poutine, Nanaimo bars and white chocolate snowballs.
Trudeau honored the two nations as “siblings” at a state dinner. He referred to the 25,000 refugees from Syria who have arrived in Canada in the past four months, saying that “diversity can be a source of strength”, BBC reported.
More than half of US governors oppose allowing refugees to settle in their states. After a private meeting at the White House, Trudeau said he had learned a lot from “my friend Barack”, who he described as “a man of both tremendous heart and tremendous intellect”.
Earlier, Obama said the two leaders share “a common outlook” and that Trudeau had brought “new energy and dynamism not only to Canada but to the relationship between our nations”.
He added that the US and Canada were “blessed to be neighbors”.
The leaders have pledged cooperation on liberalizing investment and trade, promoting clean energy and preventing foreign fighters from travelling to the Middle East.
Ahead of the meeting, a joint statement on environmental cooperation announced that the US and Canada would cut methane emissions by 40-45% below 2012 levels, by 2025.
They also agreed to set “world class” standards on commercial activities in the Arctic, including oil and gas exploration.
US-Canada relations had previously suffered because of energy issues, when Obama’s administration opposed the Keystone XL pipeline, which was meant to transport oil from Canadian tar sands in Alberta to the US Gulf coast.
President Obama, 54, sees in the young leader a man who shares his progressive politics, as well as his early rhetoric of hope and change.
Trudeau’s optimistic election platform has led many to draw comparisons with the beginning of Obama’s presidency and some American liberals to draw envious comparisons with the US political scene.
