New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will head to Canada on Thursday for his second foreign trip in recent months, giving him the chance to begin to build a foreign policy platform and demonstrate his policy chops as he considers a run for president in 2016.
In addition to meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and courting business leaders, Christie's trip will focus heavily on strengthening ties with America's neighbors and ramping up North American energy production, building on two themes he began to articulate during his recent trip to Mexico.
"The objective of the trip is to continue to strengthen relationships with our neighbors where we have strong economic and trade partnerships and natural resource opportunities," Christie's communications chief Maria Comella said.
Christie will spend Thursday in Calgary, Alberta -- the heart of Canada's tar sands energy boom -- giving a speech at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and meeting with energy CEOs and members from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
On Friday, the delegation will meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and members of his cabinet in Ottawa and attend a wreath-laying at the National War Memorial, where a soldier was recently gunned down.
The trip ends in Toronto, where Christie will tout New Jersey to CEOs and banking executives and meet with utility company representatives who helped the state in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. He will also deliver a private speech at the exclusive Albany Club.
Christie is expected to emphasize the stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would carry oil from western Canada's tar sands to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.
The back-to-back international visits appear to be part of an effort to carve out an early policy niche in the crowded field of potential 2016 candidates and demonstrate his policy chops on a bread-and-butter topic his aides believe will resonate with voters.
"The primary emphasis of the trip, of course, is to grow cross-border investment, trade and economic opportunities for New Jersey. But I think while he's there he's going to talk about -- as he did in Mexico -- the importance of trade," said Robert Grady, a former White House official and former chair of the New Jersey State Investment Council, who will be part of the delegation.
"It's very important to him to strengthen and pay priority attention to our closest allies, and Canada certainly qualifies," he said, adding that Christie has prepared for the trip by having a series of meetings with people who are knowledgeable about Canadian-U.S. relations.
Democratic Senator Raymond Lesniak, a frequent Christie critic, said the trip was another example of Christie putting his ambitions ahead of the state.
"We have an absentee governor who's more interested in gallivanting throughout the country and outside the borders of New Jersey to bolster his prospects for running for president, and that's not good for the state."
Christie has faced growing criticism for refusing to weigh in on divisive issues like immigration, fueling questions in Republican circles about whether he's doing enough to study up on issues he'll have to discuss in depth if he runs. But Christie's trips have provided him an opportunity to be briefed by some of the nation's top foreign policy experts, without stirring speculation.
That includes David Wilkins, the former U.S Ambassador to Canada under George W. Bush; Robert Zoellick, the former president of the World Bank who recently co-chaired a Council on Foreign Relations task force on North America; David Burney, a former Canadian ambassador to Washington; and other experts.
"Governor Chris Christie had a good visit with Mexico and his visit to Canada now is a bookend with the focus being on New Jersey with an economic as well as foreign policy interest," Zoellick said.
"It's a good opportunity for him to combine something that's interesting to New Jersey as a state and the country as a whole."
