Trudeau treads cautiously on foreign policy during first worldwide trip

He entered and left his final press conference to a crush of screaming people outside the briefing room, with the noise drowning out the first part of his speech.

Numerous tweets under #APEChotties quickly made it one of the most popular hashtags in the Philippines, and that trend was continuing 24 hours after those leaders’ arrival on the archipelago. The two had a brief and apparently civil encounter in Turkey but did not meet in Manila since Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was representing Russian Federation at APEC. He shrugged it off when asked, twice, on Thursday about the fanfare.

The leaders also say economic growth, prosperity and opportunity are among the “most powerful tools” to address the root causes of terrorism and radicalization.

Obama warned him: “If you don’t want to gray like me, you need to start dyeing it soon”.

The other irritant in the relationship is the president’s recent rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline to move what he dubbed as dirty Alberta oil to US refineries. “We’ll take a few interest right now and turn that into the substance of what we’re talking about”. All were hallmarks of his election campaign.

Obama said the 43-year-old prime minister will provide “energy and reform” to the Canadian political landscape.

Trudeau favors Canada’s ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade agreement championed by U.S. President Barack Obama that is meant to become the core of a region-wide free trade bloc. Several, such as Chinese President Xi Jinping and Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang, head communist, one-party states.

There they were one on each side of Obama at the meeting. He also ribbed the fresh-faced Trudeau over how the responsibilities of leadership can age a person.

Now, Trudeau has confirmed – or announced, depending on who you ask – that his government will increase the number of Canadian Armed Forces personnel on the ground in the war against ISIL. He declined to repeat the answer in the other of Canada’s two official languages, French, as he typically does.

Still, Trudeau told reporters on the flight to Manila that he felt there are a number of big things on his agenda for his first year, like climate change, that dovetail with what Obama hopes to leave as a legacy in his last year in office. An earlier version incorrectly referred to the prime minister as Pierre Trudeau.

The president invited Trudeau and his wife to the White House, a visit he said could happen early in the new year.

Declaring he intends to reclaim Canada’s “compassionate and constructive voice”, Trudeau said before he was elected that he meant to be “pushing back against the bully that is Vladimir Putin”.

Trudeau faces a long to-do list on his return to Canada, including convening provincial leaders to discuss emissions targets, recalling parliament to cut middle class taxes while raising them on high earners, and welcoming 25,000 Syrian refugees by December 31, a plan he hasn’t yet detailed.

If the G-20 and APEC are any indication, more fanfare awaits.