U.S. officials still angry about Canada's missile defence decision

[tuvor]

WASHINGTON (CP) - There were clear signs Tuesday that U.S. officials are still angry about Canada's missile defence decision, although they tried to put a good public face on cross-border relations.

And while a planned NAFTA summit is still on this month between President George W. Bush (news - web sites), Prime Minister Paul Martin and Mexico's Vicente Fox (news - web sites), some wondered how far Canada will get now in pushing for a faster way to solve difficult trade disputes.

A big delegation led by International Trade Minister Jim Peterson arrived Tuesday for a one-day blitz of Capitol Hill just as an official revealed that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) is delaying a trip to Canada because Martin said "no" to the missile shield, a project Bush has been aggressively pushing.

"I am troubled by the prime minister's decision," said Representative David Dreier (news, bio, voting record) of California, who helped host the 40-member trade group.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cpress/20050302/ca_pr_on_wo/us_cda_1

And as an aside, I'll ask one more time why anyone's surprised about this since Paul Martin pretty much laid all of this out in an interview for CTV (IIRC) and excerpted in the Windsor Star THREE MONTHS AGO. (Maybe the timing of righteous indignation wasn't good during the Christmas rush? :shrug:)

[CindyDale]

1. Does this mean it's time to break out the Freedom Dry Ginger Ale? n/t

[marmar]

2. I can hear the...

"Go fuck yourself, eh!"'s coming from across the border right now.

Kudos, Canada. Take a good hard look across the border: This is exactly what you DON'T want to become!

[tuvor]

4. Rest assured, they're all for george and co., not our American friends.

Nor even the misguided ones who confidently voted for him.

[applegrove]

3. First she was not going to visit, then she was, now she is not again.

We hope you do not come, but really, we do not really care.

[V. Kid]

5. It was a 'suprise' because...

...Martin didn't really make it clear. But if they (the Bush Admin.) where smart they would've known that A)Martin is in a minority gov't so he can't just do whatever he wants, B)a lot of Quebec Liberals, and Quebeckers in general are unhappy with this (they have the highest opposition in the country followed by BC) so unless he wanted to hand a couple more seats to the Bloc he wouldn't have signed on and C) apparently what they where asking from the Canadian goverment (a blank cheque) wasn't even something they could get from a Republican controlled Congress, so why they'd excpect a foreign country, that leans further to the left than the US to do this who knows. Although back when Martin was running for the Liberal leadership he thought we should join this thing, good thing he flip-flopped. I'm not going to give him credit, nonetheless I'm happy with the decision.