The White House has now posted on its website yesterday’s briefing with Denis Mcdonough, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication, on President Obama’s trip to Ottawa on Thursday. Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton hosted the briefing, conducted by teleconference. Mcdonough:

There will be a lot of discussion of the economic recovery plan that the President is signing today, and the synergies of that plan with the stimulus package that Prime Minister Harper has proposed in Canada, as obviously both of them have infrastructure investment in clean and renewable energy and green jobs and tax cuts for working families.

They’ll also obviously be discussing, given the fact that Canada is the largest energy provider to the United States, our shared interest in energy and the environment, significant discussion of cooperation on clean energy technology. And the President is hopeful that they can — that he’ll be able to build on the very productive conversation he had with President Calderón of Mexico last month here in Washington, before he was sworn in, wherein he and President Calderón talked about possibilities for carbon abatement, clean energy technology, and a partnership among the three North American countries on those issues.

Carbon abatement — wonder if that signifies opposition to Alberta oil sands.

White House advisors Larry Summers and Carole Browner will be along on the trip.

Thanks, by the way, to the White House for getting the briefing up just a day after it was conducted. We’re still waiting for last week’s briefings from the press secretary, Robert Gibbs. And that’s not a snide remark. We sincerely want to read them — Friday’s looked interesting — and are mystified as to what’s taking so long. Transparency, transparency, transparency.

A McClatchy newspapers’ story, “With U.S. economy stuck, economists look abroad for growth“:

WASHINGTON — As U.S. consumers stop spending and investors keep their money to themselves, government and business leaders hoping to get the country’s ailing economy moving again are playing one of their few remaining cards.

They’re trying to sell more U.S. goods overseas despite the decline of both global demand and U.S. competitiveness.

Exports currently make up about 13 percent of the country’s total economic activity, far less than the 70 percent taken up by production for domestic consumption. But that’s where economic growth can still happen, analysts say, especially as the domestic housing and credit crises promise to freeze spending at home for at least another year.

Economists and business leaders suggest the incoming Obama administration implement export-friendly measures such as streamlining U.S. customs operations, negotiating more free trade agreements and developing industries such as alternative energy that can become the next generation of U.S. economic powerhouses.

We see President-elect Obama is meeting with Mexico President Calderon today, and we trust the campaign malarky of renegotiating NAFTA has been shelved. Given the state of the economy, let’s shelve lots of the more burdensome, anti-competitive, economy-slowing policies that were bandied about during the Democratic primaries.

The New York Times suggests caution will, indeed, be the byword in the early days of the new Administration. From “Economy May Delay Work on Obama’s Campaign Pledges“:

Although Mr. Obama has not publicly identified which priorities will have to wait, advisers and allies have signaled that they may put off renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, overhauling immigration laws, restricting carbon emissions, raising taxes on the wealthy and allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

And the Employee Free Choice Act, too, right?