PM Justin Trudeau left alone on the world stage, has to face reality

London: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is largely alone in the public eye, after messing up a country with a population 35 times his own. This has been said in the media there. Days after Trudeau’s explosive announcement, his allies in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance made clear public statements that fell well short of full support, the BBC reported. British Foreign Secretary James Cleverley said his country “takes what Canada is saying very seriously”. Using almost identical language, Australia said it was “deeply concerned” by the allegations. But perhaps the most shocking silence came from Canada’s southern neighbor, the United States. The two countries are close allies, but the US did not express displeasure on Canada’s behalf.

When US President Joe Biden publicly raised the issue of India at the United Nations this week, it was not to condemn but to praise India for helping establish a new economic path. Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan later denied that there was any ‘rift’ between the US and its neighbor. He said Canada is being consulted. But other public statements were similar, with “deep concern”, the BBC reported. This indicates how important India is for the western world. According to the BBC report, experts say the problem for Canada is that its interests currently pale in comparison to India’s broader strategic importance. “The US, the UK and all these Western and Indo-Pacific allies have created a strategy that focuses primarily on India, to create a bulwark against China,” Javier Delgado, a researcher at the Wilson Centre’s Canada Institute, told the BBC. “And to retaliate. This is something they cannot afford to remove.”