What’s next for North America?

On more than one occasion I have heard criticism about the meetings of senior government officials. Sometimes the criticisms focus on the resources that are destined to organize these meetings; on other occasions, it is pointed out that presidents’ meetings are useless, since they never reach concrete results.

However, these criticisms do not take into account that – for better or for worse – the governmental apparatuses function from these commitments and from the instructions that the presidents issue in each of these meetings.

The first North American Leaders Summit (CLAN) was held in 2005, and from that year until 2016, the presidents of Mexico, the United States, and the prime minister of Canada met periodically to try to print in their teams the vision required to carry out the North American regional integration project.

This has never been an easy task, and it is fair to say that Mexico has always had to make an effort to adapt and reinterpret the North American agenda in light of these issues and the US vision of them – for example, in the In meetings from 2005 to 2007, there was much emphasis on the need to create secure supply chains, develop and implement reliable traveler programs, by reducing transaction costs and eliminating barriers to trade.

If we consider the CLAN 2021 agenda, what should be the priorities? Without a doubt, it is urgent to re-project the region as an important player at the international level, through an expeditious economic recovery, as well as an effective protection of our populations against COVID-19. It should also be a priority to develop reliable supply chains in the region, so as not to face the risk that our countries depend on the importation of the most basic inputs. Leaders’ messages reflected precisely these themes.

What’s next now? As always, the success of this agenda will depend on proper monitoring and implementation. But it seems to me that, more significantly, progress in North America would be greatly strengthened if we nurture two factors: first, ensuring that Mexico, the United States, and Canada maintain the spirit of work and integration that prevailed during the negotiation, and approval of the T-MEC, with which we endorse that our countries are much more than neighbors.

Second, North America must have a very well-defined collection of joint goals and aspirations. We are very good partners, and we have undoubtedly developed common interests from this economic integration, but we need a central idea, a great idea on which we organize and focus all our efforts.

Let us hope that CLAN 2021 is the first step in defining the North American collective imagination, since the worst thing we can do is divide ourselves as a region, when the common practice in the world is to compete regionally.

* The author is an academic from the Universidad Panamericana; Prior to that, he developed a twenty-year career in the federal government on issues of international trade negotiations.

Twitter: @JCBakerMX

Academic

Landing strips

Juan Carlos Baker is an academic at the Universidad Panamericana. For twenty years he worked in the Ministry of Economy, in the Undersecretariat of International Trade Negotiations, of which he was head between 2016 and 2018.