Globe and Mail, May 1, 2009 - Ottawa, Canada
A case for the three amigos
ANDRÉS ROZENTAL AND ROBERT PASTOR
A crisis often presents governments with an opportunity that can be either seized or
missed. One lost chance came shortly after 9/11, when Mexico asked Canada to jointly
negotiate a smart border agreement with the United States, as a way of ensuring that our
respective land borders be kept as open as possible under Homeland Security concerns to
trade in goods and services. Canada rejected the idea of working together in favour of a
separate bilateral negotiation with Washington, mainly because it felt its own relationship
with the United States was so special that including Mexico would only contaminate the
process with issues extraneous to Ottawa's agenda. The result: two nearly identical
agreements, signed six months apart, that could have been one of the first trilateral
successes of the post-NAFTA era but that, instead, emphasized our differences.
Today, we face another such opportunity. We can only hope that, this time, Canada seizes
the moment rather than following the misguided idea that excluding Mexico from the
common North American agenda is in its best interest. The swine flu pandemic is an ideal
issue on which we should be working together, not only to halt the spread of the virus
within our own region and to third countries but to ensure that solidarity among us avoids
the adoption of damaging defensive measures by others that will negatively affect trade,
tourism and communications to and from all of North America.
The North American free-trade agreement came into being largely because of Canada,
which took the lead in negotiating an earlier trade pact with the United States. When
Mexico first decided to propose a separate bilateral treaty with Washington, Canada
asked to be included. Although Ottawa's initial approach was mainly for defensive
reasons and to preserve the gains it had achieved with its earlier bilateral FTA, the
decision to negotiate à trois eventually led to the creation of the most formidable freetrade area in the world in terms of territory and, until very recently, gross product and
population.
Since NAFTA came into force, trade has tripled and foreign direct investment has
quintupled in North America. In its first seven years - until 2001 - integration among the
three countries soared. From 1994 to 2001, intra-regional trade as a percentage of our
total trade with the world increased from 43 per cent to 57 per cent, almost reaching the
levels that Europe only achieved after five decades. But since 2001, the process has
stalled, and irritants in the trilateral relationship have emerged. There are several reasons
for this, but it's mainly because the three countries of North America have reverted to two
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bilateral relationships - U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico - rather than approaching our
common challenges together.
Recently, some Canadian voices have called for a strategy to dump Mexico and cut deals
only with the United States. According to these voices, being associated with Mexico and
its drug-trafficking, violence and immigration problems could infect the supposed special
relationship between Ottawa and Washington. They say Canada's unique ties with its
southern neighbour give it an opportunity to advance its interests more effectively on its
own than if Mexico is included, especially on issues related to border security and trade
irritants. They must have been very distressed when Homeland Security Secretary Janet
Napolitano suggested that the United States prefers to treat its two neighbours and its two
borders on the basis of equality. Doesn't Washington know, these Canadians think, that
the two borders are so different?
Well, they're actually not that different. In addition to the fact that both are dysfunctional
and outdated for the same reasons, many of the issues we face - including the current
public health emergency - can only be addressed effectively if we work together. Disease,
pollution and international crime cartels don't respect territorial sovereignty, so only a
concerted North American strategy can defend us against these and other threats to our
health, security and well-being.
Today, Mexico is facing crises of unprecedented proportions. The swine flu epidemic,
drugs, violence and a severe economic decline threaten our daily lives and undermine our
global competitiveness. Wouldn't this be an ideal opportunity for Canada to join the
United States and Mexico in mitigating these threats? Isn't this a great opportunity for
Canada to join its North American neighbours and allies in working together, rather than
separately?
Canada needs to accept Mexico as a true partner. If it does, the North American concept
will be reinvigorated and become an example of progressive co-operative integration,
rather than a failed experiment to be disdained and discarded.
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Andrés Rozental is a former deputy foreign minister of Mexico and a senior fellow in
foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution. Robert Pastor is a professor and codirector of the Center for North American Studies at American University in Washington.