{"id":123339,"date":"2015-10-21T05:58:52","date_gmt":"2015-10-21T05:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=123339"},"modified":"2015-10-23T07:02:24","modified_gmt":"2015-10-23T07:02:24","slug":"trudeau-sticks-by-pledge-to-end-air-strikes-against-islamic-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=123339","title":{"rendered":"Trudeau sticks by pledge to end air strikes against Islamic State"},"content":{"rendered":"

Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail Oct 20, 2015<\/h1>\n
\"Prime-minister-designate

Prime-minister-designate Justin Trudeau stops to meet members of the public on his way to a press conference in Ottawa on October 20, 2015. (Sean Kilpatrick)<\/p><\/div>\n

Justin Trudeau was still celebrating when the White House raised its first qualms about his agenda: Washington wants Canada to stick with the mission fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the prime-minister-designate told his first press conference that he will fulfill an election promise to pull out of air strikes, and made that clear to U.S. President Barack Obama in a telephone call Tuesday afternoon.<\/span><\/p>\n

It marked a first challenge to Mr. Trudeau, and a signal that international challenges will rush in quickly, even as a list of domestic promises waits.<\/span><\/p>\n

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the President hopes to work with Mr. Trudeau on issues including climate change, but underlined Mr. Obama\u2019s agenda: The U.S. hopes Canada will support the Trans-Pacific trade agreement \u2013 and wants Canada to carry on with the IS mission.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope that we can continue to count on their ongoing support for this very important mission,\u201d Mr. Earnest said.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Mr. Trudeau, who has promised to warm relations with the United States, it is a sensitive challenge. He had his first congratulatory call from the U.S. President, then insisted at the press conference that Mr. Obama \u201cunderstands\u201d he has made campaign commitments to withdraw from air strikes.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Mr. Trudeau, who has pledged to continue the training role of Canadian troops in Iraq, sounded at times more like someone signing up than a leader planning to quit the bombing mission.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI committed that we would continue to engage in a responsible way that understands Canada has a role to play in the fight against [IS],\u201d he said at a press conference. He didn\u2019t say precisely when he\u2019d withdraw Canadian CF-18s, only that it would be done in a \u201cresponsible\u201d manner.<\/span><\/p>\n

Politically, Mr. Trudeau cannot completely backtrack on his controversial promise to pull out of the IS air strikes mission.<\/span><\/p>\n

But his tone Tuesday suggested he\u2019ll try to manage the political symbolism. The Obama administration will hope to ensure Canadian withdrawal from air strikes isn\u2019t interpreted as a weakening of international support for the mission.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Trudeau could choose to leave Canadian fighters in the mission for months, perhaps until the year-long mandate voted by Parliament runs out in March. Aides said decisions on the timelines are yet to be made. Or he could expand the training mission as he withdraws the jets \u2013 just as Stephen Harper\u2019s government committed to training in Afghanistan when it withdrew combat troops.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an issue that could complicate Mr. Trudeau\u2019s efforts to show he has improved relations with the U.S., and end what he called \u201can era of antagonism\u201d under Mr. Harper\u2019s tenure.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Earnest, the White House press secretary, were at pains to stress the broad cross-border relationship, and to minimize the importance of the long-delayed approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. Mr. Trudeau said he chose not to raise the pipeline in his first call with Mr. Obama because he didn\u2019t want to focus on \u201ca single point of potential disagreement.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Both also emphasized a potential shift on Canada\u2019s climate-change policy, with Mr. Earnest saying the White House believes Canada could do more, and Mr. Trudeau saying he looks forward to demonstrating that there\u2019s now going to be a Canadian government that will be engaged on climate-change issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-nation trade agreement concluded earlier this month, Mr. Obama wants assurances that Mr. Trudeau will ratify it, as he prepares a political campaign to push the agreement through the U.S. Congress. And the White House issued a statement later suggesting Mr. Trudeau agreed the TPP should go ahead.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the campaign, Mr. Trudeau had hinted he would favour the TPP, the text of which has not yet been made public, but refused to definitively commit to ratifying it.<\/span><\/p>\n

But after his phone call with Mr. Obama on Tuesday, the White House summary suggested Mr. Trudeau had indicated he wants the TPP to be implemented. The statement said the two had noted \u201cthe need to move forward with implementing the high standards of the agreement, which promised to boost economic growth and support good-paying jobs on both sides of the border.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

An aide to Mr. Trudeau said the prime-minister-designate reiterated to Mr. Obama that he is pro-trade, but is committed \u200eto holding a debate on the TPP in Parliament.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the wake of his election win, Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau has confirmed that he will withdraw Canadian fighter jets from the campaign against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-beheadings-by-muslim-militants"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123339"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123345,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123339\/revisions\/123345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=123339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=123339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}