World Today: Trade Commissioner and Trans-Atlantic Unity

world today: The EU's trade commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, underlined the accord's importance in Ottawa last week when she commended the Canadian government for favouring open borders instead of closed ones and working with, not against, other nations, according to Hamilton Spectator. This is a timely message and Malmstrom had no trouble identifying the dangerous forces she sees threatening the global order. It will be a cry for trans-Atlantic unity, a defiant stand against the sinister populist and isolationist winds buffeting the world today. She cited the election of U.S. President Donald Trump who wants to Make America Great Again by renegotiating the North American Trade Agreement, building a wall along the Mexican border, taxing imports and getting tough with migrants. Such an outcome would delight and embolden Vladimir Putin, Russia's paranoid but expansionist president. She cited last year's Brexit vote that will take the United Kingdom out of the EU. And she cited the upcoming French presidential elections in which one of the leading candidates, Marine Le Pen, boasts an anti-trade, anti-immigrant, antiglobalization platform as well as plans to pull France out of the EU. If France leaves, the union of nations that has delivered peace and prosperity to Europe for 60 years could be destroyed. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.