Why Joe Biden is not reopening his borders to Canadians and Europeans (Courrier des Amériques editorial)

By werdt20/02/2022581 Views

It is necessary to specify the names of the countries which have a “travel ban” from the United States, because half of the planet can indeed come here, in the USA.

Chronological reminder: As soon as he took office Joe Biden had restored the border bans that his predecessor, Donald Trump, had just lifted. For the next four months, neither the White House nor the American mass media mentioned the closed borders any more, as if there was no problem with them being closed. Since the beginning of June, the White House has indicated on several occasions that it was going to reopen the borders. A commission has been set up to study these reopenings. While at the beginning of August the Americans had regained the right to go to Canada, we learned at about the same time that the American borders were going to reopen “for the vaccinated”. News agencies sometimes obtained quick confessions from the White House on the subject. And then nothing for 20 days. On August 29, 2021, it is impossible to know where the White House is on the subject.

So, it's certain, as Secretary of State Blinken mentioned in June, the American government wants to be “beware of the new variant”. And it seems obvious that Biden would have reopened the borders to Canadians and Europeans (who opened them) if this "new variant" had not appeared.

AN IRRATIONAL CLOSURE

We have already mentioned this at length (for example in our editorials): border closures are of no use in stopping or slowing down viruses or their variants. Quite the contrary since, when they are open, the borders make it possible to detect (thanks to the tests) the people who have the disease (and who, otherwise, would not have been detected). These screening devices are now successfully used at the borders of most countries in the world.

Why Joe Biden is not reopening his borders to Canadians and Europeans (Courrier des Amériques editorial)

Let's also remember that the American borders are just "semi-closed" to people (and to viruses): half of the planet can come (including from third-world countries that have no control over the virus), professionals or immigrants can come and go, including countries that have a travel ban; and, in the case of Canadian tourists, they have never been prevented from coming to the USA by plane… but they are not allowed to go there by car!!!! Voices have been raised against this nonsense, such as the journal Foreign Policy, which accuses Joe Biden of betraying his commitment to have a policy based on scientific realities (1). Or here the Democratic magazine The Atlantic.

One of our interlocutors (an elected official) has an opinion on these erratic behaviors: “It is not a question of a scientific position, but a political one. Joe Biden won the presidential elections in particular by assuring that he would have, once elected, a more decisive action than that of Trump against the covid-19 pandemic. But if Joe Biden reopened borders with Canada and Europe, then US policy would be exactly the same as BEFORE the pandemic. There would certainly be local adjustments, such as the “sanitary passes” requested in several large cities (New York, San Francisco, New Orleans, etc.) to go to dinner at the restaurant, or even masks in certain schools, but this does not It is neither a federal initiative nor a federal policy. In Canada or France, governments are implementing policies against the virus. So they were able to reopen the borders. But in the United States… what other power does Biden have than to close the borders?

Indeed, in the absence of any other rational explanation, it is perhaps necessary to seek a political position. Joe Biden has just dropped below 50% favorable opinion for the first time. In 2020 Biden was however the first to qualify Donald Trump's closing of borders as "xenophobic hysteria".

Remember that the travel ban has serious consequences for expatriate families, companies (particularly in the tourism sector) and their employees. We receive and see every day in the Courrier des Amériques quite desperate marks among many of our readers.

Discussions on the subject seem rare with the White House. Joe Biden spoke to Boris Johnson in early June about closing borders. In July German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her disagreement to Joe Biden. It should also be noted that French senator Damien Regnard held meetings in Paris and Washington in July to plead the cause of the reopening. Canadians also seem quite amazed that there is no reciprocity.