WASHINGTON – President Bush begins his second-term initiative to mend frayed relations with America’s alienated allies today by visiting neighboring Canada, which strongly opposed the Iraq war and has had friction with Washington about post-Sept. 11 U.S. immigration policies and trade.

If all goes well during Bush’s two-day trip, the administration’s approach to Canada could serve as a model when the president tours Europe early next year in hope of repairing strained relations there.

But things could go awry.

Canadian newspapers report that protesters are gearing up to dog Bush every step of the way. He won’t address the nation’s Parliament, and some Canadian analysts say it’s because the president wants to avoid being heckled by elected officials.

“If Canada were a U.S. state, it would be a blue state,” said Joseph Jockel, a St. Lawrence University Canadian-studies professor, referring to the blue-red designations given to states that trend Democratic or Republican, respectively. “By no means are U.S.-Canada relations as bad as they were 20-30 years ago. But there is work to do.”

The president’s international charm offensive begins today in Ottawa, where he’ll make his first official working visit to the foreign capital closest to Washington. He’ll have one-on-one meetings with Prime Minister Paul Martin on security and trade issues before attending an official dinner with Martin, Canada’s 10 premiers and more than 600 Canadian and U.S. dignitaries.

“I consider this a relationship-tending visit,” Jockel said.

Canadian officials say they expect Bush to announce a timetable for lifting a ban on Canadian beef that the United States imposed in 2003, when evidence of mad cow disease was discovered in one animal in the western province of Alberta. Canadian cattle ranchers have lost billions of dollars since the ban was imposed 18 months ago. To help Bush chew over his decision, Alberta-raised beef will be served at Tuesday’s dinner.

Wednesday, the president is to deliver a speech in Halifax honoring the town for hosting some 33,000 Americans who were stranded when their flights were diverted to Nova Scotia after the U.S. closed its air space following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Many Canadians think the recognition is long overdue.

“He gave so much thanks to Great Britain and nothing to Canada,” said Earl Fry, a professor of Canadian studies at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

That sentiment helps explain the state of U.S.-Canadian relations, which several analysts described as firm, but with a degree of underlying tension. Canada is the United States’ top trading partner, with goods worth $1.2 billion passing daily between the countries and 200 million people crossing the border yearly. Canada is America’s top external source of energy, including crude oil, according to Canadian Embassy figures.

“There are so many relationships, so much money involved, so much movement of people back and forth between borders,” said Charles F. Doran, a senior associate for the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a center-right research center. “The way Iraq was handled was very damaging to the relationship.”

The U.S.-Canadian relationship showed fissures even before the U.S.-led march to Baghdad. Bush had a frosty relationship with former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who was a friend of President Clinton and made no secret of his desire to see Vice President Al Gore succeed him.

And Bush ruffled some feathers north of the border when he decided to make Mexico, not Canada, his first foreign stop after he assumed office in 2001.

Canada supported the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, providing 18 warships, and it rotated 12,000 military personnel through Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf. But it didn’t join the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq in 2003.

Canada also bristled at some of the Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11 immigration policies. In 2002, the Ottawa government briefly issued a rare travel advisory urging some Canadians of Middle Eastern ancestry to think twice before traveling to the United States. That was a protest against a U.S. policy requiring people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria – regardless of current citizenship – to be photographed and fingerprinted on arrival in the United States.

U.S. and Canadian officials worked out a compromise allowing Canadians of Middle Eastern descent to be treated like any other Canadian citizens, while preserving the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service’s authority to screen people on an individual basis.

The two countries remain bitterly at odds over soft lumber. Canada maintains that duties levied on its lumber exports in 2001 are unfair and have cost Canadian companies $3.8 billion. Washington argues that the duties were needed because Canadian provincial governments subsidize the softwood industry.

The World Trade Organization and North America Free Trade Association panels have sided with Canada on the issue. The United States has asked NAFTA for another review.