Promises Made, Promises Kept? A Mid-term Trudeau Foreign Policy Report Card

Parties and candidates seeking office invariably try to attract votes by making promises that they believe will resonate with the electorate. Frequently, however, those promises are embraced without a careful consideration of what would happen if the candidate making the promises actually won the election and took power. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a mid-term assessment of the Trudeau government’s international policy based on the promises that the Liberals made while in opposition or during the election campaign. The chapter argues that the Trudeau government was able to forge a different path, but it is a difference primarily of tone. Taken as a whole, the specific international policy promises made by the Liberals during the 2015 campaign do not cast a negative shadow. However, the promises that the Liberals made during the 2015 election have been almost entirely eclipsed by the election of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States. At mid-term, the defining feature of the Trudeau government’s foreign policy has been its management of the challenges posed by Trump.