Canada gets no Trump, European Union support in Saudi conflict

This Canadian TV video says about itself:

Trudeau on Saudi Arms deal

14 April 2016

Prime Minister tells London audience that a signed contract is something Canada must honour.

That was then.

Now, that big weapons deal, promising fat profits for Canadian merchants of death off the bloody war by the Saudi autocracy on the people of Yemen, seems to be off nevertheless.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

An ambassador being expelled, a $ 15 billion defense deal going into the paper shredder and thousands of students being transferred; the quarrel between Canada and Saudi Arabia is escalating. …

For example, more than ten female activists have been arrested since May. Internationally Saudi Arabia is mainly criticized because of the heavy bombing it has been doing for years in poverty-stricken Yemen. With, what some people call, the biggest humanitarian disaster of this time as a result. …

Susan Rice, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations, called on Europe and the United States to support Canada in this. “They have to make it clear to Saudi Arabia that we do not shrink back”, she tweeted.

The United States representative in the UN during the Obama administration used to be Ms Susan Rice. There was talk of promoting her to Secretary of State, succeeding Hillary Clinton. The Republican party in the US Congress disliked Rice as “too liberal” (and some Republicans disliked her for being African-American). Ms. Rice was made the scapegoat for the murder of the US ambassador to Libya (while basically the whole US political establishment, including Republican Senator McCain, who had flip-flopped from Gaddafi crony to crony of Gaddafi’s Al-Qaeda-ish enemies, had contributed in setting the scene for that murder and much other violence in Libya).

The US administration then nominated ‘liberal hawk’ Samantha Power for the UN job. Ms Power did not have Ms Rice’s unpopularity with the Republican right wing. In the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sixteen votes said Yes to her; only two said No.

Amnesty International also urged Dutch Minister Blok of Foreign Affairs, and his European colleagues, to speak out publicly for the release of human rights activists in Saudi Arabia.

But there is no large-scale support for the time being. The European Commission said today that it wants clarification, but refuses to get involved in the diplomatic dispute between Saudi Arabia and Canada. In a first reaction, the US State Department called both countries ‘good allies’ … . There a no hard statements.

In a way, typical for the Trump administration. However, already during the Obama presidency, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refused to support Saudi women fighting for the right to drive cars.

Talks between US and Canadian representatives on a revamped North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) broke up yesterday without an agreement, missing the deadline for a deal set by the Trump administration: here.

NEW NAFTA IS ALL ABOUT CORPORATE PROFITS Trump’s new NAFTA is an agreement with Mexico and Canada that has generous protections for Republican-aligned industries, including Big Pharma and fossil fuel polluters; no meaningful environmental protections; weak consumer safeguards; and no mechanism to enforce the moderately improved labor standards contemplated by the deal. [HuffPost]

Canada to go to polls amid geopolitical crisis, mounting working-class resistance: here.