Machias Seal Island: querelle frontalière Canada-États-Unis

Difficile de nier que sous l'administration Trump les relations canado-américaines sont pour le moins tendues et difficiles. À la relation entre Donald Trump et Justin Trudeau ainsi qu'aux négociations cahotiques entourant l'ALENA, il faut ajouter la dispute entourant cette île au nord de l'état du Maine. La dispute entourant Machias Island trouve ses origines dans le le traité de 1783 qui reconnaissait l'indépendance des nouveaux États-Unis.

 "When Washington and Ottawa went to the World Court to settle the boundary differences over the adjacent fishing grounds of Georges Bank in the 1980s, they deliberately left out Machias Seal Island and the Gray Zone.

 The British first erected a lighthouse on the island in 1832, and Canada inherited it when it became a country in 1867. Even though the lighthouse is now automated, Canada employs lighthouse keepers on site to maintain its sovereignty claim.

There are four boundary disputes along the countries’ border, but the fight over Machias Seal Island is the “only one that actually involves sovereignty over a piece of territory,” said Stephen Kelly, a retired U.S. diplomat and a research scholar on boundary issues at Duke University. The other disputes are squabbles over marine boundaries.

Both countries insist the waters in the Gray Zone are rightfully theirs, so for years there has been an arrangement whereby each country imposes its fishing rules on its own vessels. That means Coast Guard and fisheries vessels from the United States and Canada do not impose their rules on boats from the other country."

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/the-trump-administration-is-ensnared-in-another-border-dispute--this-time-with-canada/2018/08/11/43bcc8aa-9800-11e8-818b-e9b7348cd87d_story.html?utm_term=.24422c666b2a