On his first day as President of the United States, Biden signed 17 executive orders in one go, one of which was to suspend the Keystone XL oil pipeline project between the United States and Canada.
Biden’s move was evaluated as “not giving Canada face” and “shaming”, and Canadian scholars called for tariffs on the United States in retaliation.
Even more embarrassing is that after hours of congratulating Biden on his inauguration, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau issued a statement saying he was “disappointed” with Biden’s decision.
According to Reuters, Biden will call Trudeau on the 22nd, which will be the first call to a foreign leader since Biden took office.
The call will mainly focus on the relationship between the United States and Canada and the “Gault Stone” project suspended by Biden.
During the campaign, Biden repeatedly promised to cancel the “Heartstone” project.
After he was the vice president, then President Obama suspended the construction of the project, but Trump decided to restart it after he took office.
Trudeau has made many efforts to maintain the project.
After Biden was elected President of the United States, Trudeau immediately sent congratulations and called Biden, and tweeted that he was “ready to restart cooperation to meet the challenges and opportunities faced by the two countries”.
Immediately after Biden was sworn in, Trudeau tweeted congratulations: “Our two countries have jointly addressed some major challenges in history, and I look forward to continuing this partnership with you, Harris and your government.”
However, Biden still refuted Trudeau’s “face” and started the “arch stone” project on his first day in office, which forced Trudeau to issue a statement hours later, saying that he was “disappointed” with Biden’s decision.
“We welcome the President’s commitment [Biden] to combat climate change, but we are disappointed [with the president’s decision on the “Crystone” project,” although we acknowledge that the president’s decision is to fulfill his campaign promise.” “I spoke directly to President Biden about the project last November, and Ambassador Hillman and others in our administration also made it clear to incoming senior U.S. government officials,” Trudeau said in a statement.
“This is an insult!” Minz, a scholar at the University of Calgary in Canada, wrote in the Canadian Financial Post about the matter that the cancellation of the project will directly lose nearly 3,000 jobs in Canada, 14,000 jobs indirectly, and billions of dollars in GDP losses.
Minz believes that Canada can impose tariffs on some U.S. petroleum products until the United States agrees to withdraw the “decision to cancel the ‘Gault Stone’ project”.
The “Arch Stone” pipeline project, with a total value of nearly $9 billion, is planned to lay pipelines from Hardisty, Alberta, the oil sands mine base in western Canada, and go south to Steele City, Nebraska, United States, connecting the existing pipeline of the Gulf of Mexico refinery. When completed, it is expected that more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil will be shipped to Texas every day.
Part of this project in Canada is under construction.
However, in the United States, the project has encountered environmental lawsuits, slow construction, and it will stall for most of 2020. Environmental organizations believe that it may pollute groundwater along the way and increase greenhouse gas emissions.
Before Biden’s official inauguration, Jason Kenny, Governor of Alberta, Canada, said on social media on the 18th that he was “deeply concerned” about Biden’s consideration of withdrawing the project, hoping that Biden would “give face” or he would protect the province’s interests in the project through various legal means.
