![US President Donald Trump and Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney]() Evelyn Hockstein/ReutersIn the early days of Operation Epic Fury, the US faced a crisis helping its citizens evacuate from the region. Improvising, American diplomats in Abu Dhabi phoned a friend: Canada, Semafor’s Kelsey Warner reports. No formal agreement exists between the countries on consular services, so a plan was hastily arranged for the Canadian embassy to serve as a pickup point for new and renewed US passports so citizens could evacuate. That the US turned to Canada is surprising, given the countries’ strained relationship under Trump. But the Canadians “did not hesitate. The answer was an immediate yes,” a senior State Department official told Semafor. “We were kind of stuck,” the official added. “We had all these passports arriving by FedEx from the print facility in the United States,” but “we didn’t have a location to give them out.” |