From Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is now and then.

I'm Heather Cox Richardson.

And I'm Joanne Freeman.

This week we're going to talk about a topic that was inspired by something that happened

last week, and that is President Biden made his first trip to Canada since assuming office.

Americans think about Canada a lot.

Canadians actually think about America a lot.

But what we're interested in looking at is the relationship between the countries, how Americans have conceived of Canada

and how that has worked its way through American ideas about itself and the world.

Now, at the end of last month, Biden went to Canada, met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,

largely to rebuild the relationship between Canada and the United States after four years of provocation between Donald Trump and Canada.

But in addition to relationship building, they made some specific agreements about North American aerospace defense command,

about semi conductor manufacturing, about the crisis in Haiti, about climate change.

And they made a high profile announcement about a deal that they struck that would allow both countries to turn away asylum seekers who crossed the border illegally.

There were a lot of shows of affection between the two leaders.

It was clear that the nature of their relationship to each other and of the two countries' relationship to each other was part of what they were communicating.

Here's what Trudeau said.

Today, new threats to liberal democracy loom on the horizon, and we are united in our efforts to protect our countries and what we stand for.

Canada and the U.S. are bolstering Ukraine's defense against Putin's illegal and unjustifiable invasion.

We are steadfast security partners through NORAD and NATO and the Five Eyes alliances.

We're standing shoulder to shoulder in defense of our values and against authoritarianism.

We are working to fight climate change and create new opportunities for people in both of our countries.

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