Inside Palin's Foreign Affairs File

WASHINGTON
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin may point to Russia when pushing her foreign policy experience, but public records and interviews show the Republican vice presidential nominee has more face time with her neighbors in Canada.

With Arctic issues of melting ice, untapped energy, and increased trade opportunities, Palin could be expected to have a wider foreign policy background than she does, according to Chris Sands, a U.S.-Canadian relations expert.

"She's probably a little bit below average, given the number of issues that come through Alaska," said Sands, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Hudson Institute.

Though Palin frequently sites her proximity to Russia as a feather in her world affairs hat ("We have trade missions back and forth," Palin told CBS' Katie Couric), the McCain-Palin campaign declined to discuss why Palin has not visited Russia despite at least two invitations - one from neighboring Chukotka province, which is less than 60 miles from Alaska's northwest coast.

Palin passed on another opportunity to go to Russia last year when a group of eight Arctic countries comprising The Northern Forum met in September in central Russia. The forum brings the governments together to discuss energy, infrastructure, environment and rural issues.

"Governor Palin has not participated in any way in any of our meetings," said Priscilla Wohl, the forum's executive director.

Founded by an Alaska governor in 1990 to unite state leaders from China, Japan, Russia, and other northern countries, Palin is the first Alaskan governor to skip the forum's biannual meeting, Wohl said.

In the past eight years, Wohl said she met with the foreign minister of Russia twice and other leaders from the European Union and United Nations.

"That's the kind of access we provide as an organization to our members," she said. "Some of the regions are taking advantage of that. They're shaking hands. They're finding funding."

While Palin has continued Alaska's payment of $15,000 annual dues to the organization, Wohl said the governor eliminated supplementary funding for the forum, which had ranged from $60,000 to $100,000.

Palin spoke to a similar group, the Conference of Arctic Parliamentarians, at its August 2008 meeting in Alaska.

But most of Palin's foreign dealings have been with one country, Canada, and focused on one major issue - a $26 billion natural gas pipeline, for which she is credited with securing greater royalties for the state than her predecessor had negotiated.

In her first 21 months as governor, Palin met with Yukon Territory Premier Dennis Fentie three times and British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell twice, according to the premiers' offices. The meeting with Campbell in April 2007 was "brief and informal," according to Campbell spokeswoman Bridgitte Anderson.

Four of the five meetings were on U.S. soil.

Fentie said Palin was "very personable," "well-versed on the issues," and ready to collaborate on energy and transportation when they first met in January 2007.

At a later meeting in Anchorage, the two signed a deal to cooperate on the gas pipeline that is to run from Alaska's North Slope through Canada to Chicago.

McCain-Palin campaign spokesman Ed O'Callaghan said Palin's handling of "the detailed negotiations" on the pipeline "demonstrates her ability to work with leaders from Canadian border provinces."

"This is a major claim to fame for her," Sands said. "What it tells us about her approach is it's all about doing a good deal."

Fentie, a leader of the conservative Yukon Party, now shows a sense of regional pride in his counterpart's political rise.

"Having somebody like the governor of Alaska in the office of the vice president is a good thing for us in this region," he said. "The North has long struggled at getting situated on the national radar screen."

Studies of U.S.-Canada relations show the international ties have often been strongest in the West, Sands said, especially in the Pacific Northwest, where "they have a tradition of self-reliance."

"Out West they have two things going for them, they are relatively close together and far from their capitals," he said.

Palin met British Columbia Premier Campbell once in Juneau, Alaska, and once in Wyoming for a Pacific Coast Coalition meeting with Campbell and western governors on climate change.

An archive of Palin press releases shows a governor much more inclined to host at home than travel abroad.

Her first month in office she welcomed 30 Canadian diplomats for an economic development conference.

"Alaska's new administration needs to start early and energetically with expanding our strong, cooperative relationship with Canada," Palin said at the Pacific Northwest Economic Region meeting in January 2007.

Two months later she welcomed diplomats from 13 countries, including Australia, China, Germany, Japan, Russia and others for a tourist-friendly Alaska Fur and Ice Event.

Palin traveled to New Orleans for a conference in September 2007 as chair of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, a mostly U.S. group that includes non-voting international affiliates in Canada and elsewhere to promote efficient and safe use of oil and natural gas.

But she did not attend the group's May 2008 summit in Calgary, three weeks after the birth of her son Trig.

In a videotaped message, Palin applauded the commission for meeting outside the U.S. for its first time since its founding in 1935. "It's about time," she said.

Palin also addressed the International Whaling Commission when it was in Anchorage, Alaska that year.

The stay-at-home style of foreign policy can be seen as a governor prioritizing local concerns, Sands said.

"She is very typical for a governor - very domestic oriented," Sands said, comparing Palin's first foray into national politics to that of President George W. Bush, who had primarily met only with Mexican President Vicente Fox while governor of Texas.

"It's more (experience) than she's got," he said. "Her activity is mostly local, but what she's done is good and pragmatic."