BEIJING (AP) — Canadian leader Mark Carney met China’s Xi Jinping this week. The two statesmen talked. Fractured relationships began to heal. And a third man, though he wasn’t in the room, nevertheless made his presence clearly known: Donald Trump.
The American president — his policies, his approaches to international relations, his freewheeling and provocative statements about Canada — helped inform meetings 8,000 miles (13,000 kilometers) away between two nations working to reestablish ties stalled for nearly a decade as they grapple with the same challenge: wondering what Washington might do next.