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Summary: Trudeau's Relationship

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Canada’s most important diplomatic relationship is that with the United States. Over the years this relationship has had its ups and downs for numerous reasons, but it can be largely traceable to the interpersonal rapport between prime ministers and presidents in any era.
Relations between Canada and the United States, is of the utmost importance in maintaining harmony within our continent and that synergy must begin at the top, with the prime minister and the president. Throughout history, many Canadian prime ministers have garnered good relations with our neighbors to the south, but it was Brian Mulroney who set the modern standard for excellence in bilateral relations.

Once quoted as saying “When the president engages, the White House engages, and when the …show more content…

A survey published in 1982 by the Foreign Affairs Committee, stated that “relations between the U.S. and Canada have become more strained that at any time in recent memory”. Over the course of Pierre Trudeau’s last term in office, the temperature of Canada’s most important foreign relationship had plunged from chilly to icy. This deep freeze inflicted real costs on Canadians. By 1984, the terms of trade were turning against Canadian raw-materials exports, and Canadian manufacturers faced an intensifying threat of protectionism in Congress. With Centre-right governments in power in Washington, London and Bonn, Canada found itself isolated, its interest disregarded, its opinions openly scoffed at. The U.S. saw the Trudeau “peace initiative” as the “pot-induced behavior of an erratic leftist”. Brian Mulroney set himself to restore Canada’s reputation as a respected and reliable partner. He succeeded---and then

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