The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/02/12 at 08:00 EST

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/02/12 at 08:00 EST

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Preferencing U.S. President Donald Trump, Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair says he will not tolerate anyone saying Canada is not a real country, or is the 51st state. Blair is in Brussels today at NATO headquarters. In all the years that we have been a member of NATO, Canada is never a country that has ever had to ask for help or been threatened by our alliances. That's not really the relationship that Canada has with the nations of the world. But we've been there for others. And every time our allies and our friends needed us, we were there. Blair was speaking this morning after he and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met in Brussels

with the NATO Secretary General. NATO and Canada's defense spending is a source of friction with US President Donald Trump. He frequently brings it up when threatening Canada with more tariffs. And on that front, with the clock ticking on the Trump administration tariff threats, another Canadian lobby campaign is underway in Washington. All 13 Canadian premiers are in the U.S. Capitol today, and they're looking to win over Republican members of Congress, whose districts will feel the effect of any trade Trump action.

Janice McGregor reports. This assumes, though, that voices in Congress are prepared to stick their necks out and use their authority to push back against this tariff strategy. This assumes though that voices in Congress are prepared to stick their necks out and use their authority to push back against this tariff strategy. And so far, we haven't seen very much of that. Still efforts continue to find Americans who get it and are prepared to be honest with Trump supporters that this isn't going to make US industries rich. It's going to inflict great harm for manufacturers and consumers too.

The difference between what we heard from premiers last week and this week? No premier is making big threats to retaliate, at least not yet. The strategy behind Canada's campaign is premised on presidential power still being capable of being influenced, constrained by checks and balances. Unfortunately, so far, Trump's been unimpeded in his authoritarian push with executive order after executive order flooding out of the White House. Janice McGregor, CBC News, Ottawa. Also in Washington today is Federal Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc.

He is scheduled to meet with President Trump's trade and commerce nominee, Howard Lutnick. In recent weeks, Lutnick has been a vocal supporter of Trump's tariff initiatives. And while LeBlanc and the premiers are on Capitol Hill, the Minister of Public Safety is at the Ontario-U.S. border. David McGinty is looking to demonstrate to the White House that Canada has not forgotten its commitment to improve border security. Yesterday, the Trudeau government named Kevin Brosseau Canada's new Fentanyl Tsar. And industry minister Francois-Philippe Champagne is insisting work is already underway on the

fentanyl file. We have someone who is kind of heading all these efforts, making sure that we have one big voice on that. So I think you'll see action. Kevin Brosseau is the former deputy commissioner of the RCMP. Back to defense, the EU foreign ministers are in Paris today discussing the war in Ukraine. At the same time, US Defense Secretary Pete Hesketh is at NATO headquarters in Brussels. And at both meetings, high on the agenda is a land swap being proposed by Ukrainian President

Vladimir Zelensky. Kristal Gamansing has more. I don't think Ukraine invaded the Kursk region in Russia with the intent of occupying it permanently. Kurt Volker was the U.S. special envoy to Ukraine during the first Trump administration. Strategy, he says, was behind Ukrainian forces sweeping into the Russian territory east of Ukraine in August of 2024. They have something that Russia wants. Russia has something that they want, they can do a trade. Ukraine's president Vladimir Zelensky told the Guardian newspaper he plans to offer the Russian territory in exchange to help end the war. That has been a priority for President

Donald Trump. Zelensky is expected to meet Trump's second-in-command, JD Vance, at the Munich Security Conference on Friday. Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, called the idea of a land trade nonsense. Crystal Gamansing, CBC News, London. And that is the World This Hour. For CBC News, I'm Joe Cummings.