(Washington) The leaders of the three governments of North America, calling them “Three Amigos”, arrived in Mexico City on Monday, while Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador hosts his counterpart from the United States, Joe Biden, and the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau.
The plane carrying Prime Minister Trudeau and his wife took off around 10 a.m. from Macdonald-Cartier International Airport in Ottawa and landed around 2:40 p.m. at Felipe Ángeles International Airport in Mexico City.
The Prime Minister filled his first day at the summit with meetings with several diplomats, government leaders and business leaders from across the continent.
In particular, he recalled that the North American continent had almost lost its free trade agreement when NAFTA came to an end in 2019. This agreement was finally replaced, the following year, by the Canada-States Agreement. United-Mexico, negotiated during Donald Trump’s US presidency.
“We are working as friends now…we almost lost NAFTA,” said Mr. Trudeau, before thanking the various stakeholders for the role they played in negotiating the new agreement.
“The Mexican government, our Canadian government, and I worked very hard to impress upon the then US administration how important trade between allies and a reliable trade agreement in North America was in creating opportunity” , underlined Mr. Trudeau.
For his part, President Biden participated in a private meeting with Mr. Lopez Obrador, his Mexican counterpart. Mr Biden was fresh from his first presidential visit to the US-Mexico border, where political tension is high due to irregular migration.
Trudeau will have his own one-on-one with Biden on Tuesday, just before the official summit begins.
“Immense potential”
“The potential of this summit for North America is immense,” said former Clinton-era White House official who now heads the Washington office of the Council of the Americas and the Society of the Americas, Eric Farnsworth.
Mr. Farnsworth believes that a continental perspective will be key to making substantial progress on issues such as supply chains, China’s influence, labor shortages in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. 19.
“We hope that leaders, when they come together to discuss some of these issues, will keep in mind the fundamental vision of what North America could really be,” he said during a round table last Friday.
“We can’t do these things without our partners in Canada and Mexico; it’s just fundamental to our own well-being. And so that must be the underlying message of the leaders when they come together. »
“It’s a trilateral meeting, but many bilateral points are also discussed during these meetings,” said Gary Doer, who served as Canada’s ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2016.
Then-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper held several one-on-one meetings with his US counterpart Barack Obama the last time the summit was held in Mexico in 2014, Doer said.
With Canadian and Mexican manufacturers added to the 11e In time for President Biden’s plan to encourage the sale of climate-friendly electric vehicles, there will be room to talk about more familiar irritants like trade disputes and US protectionism.
On these fronts there will be no shortage of talking points.
The United States argues that Canada’s supply-managed dairy market deprives US producers of fair access to customers north of the border. Washington also claims that Mexico unfairly favors domestic energy suppliers.
For their part, Mexico and Canada criticize the United States for not playing a level playing field when it comes to how it defines foreign content in its automotive supply chains.
Mexico is also under pressure to agree with the United States on President Lopez Obrador’s plan to ban imports of genetically modified corn and the herbicide glyphosate, an order that has angered American farmers.
USA first
Then there is the “US First” policy, which is to prefer domestic US suppliers over those of neighboring allies.
Canada may have avoided disaster when President Biden’s electric vehicle tax credits were changed last year to include North American manufacturers, but President Biden rarely misses an opportunity to brag about power chains. supply from the United States.
And the green energy incentives currently in place in the United States still pose challenges for Canada, according to Louise Blais, a retired Canadian diplomat who served as ambassador to the UN and consul general in Atlanta.
“I expect the Mexican President and the Canadian Prime Minister to raise this issue with President Biden to say that we need to have a more continental approach to some of these policies. It is in the interest of the United States to put these measures in place so that they really drive prosperity across its own country,” said Ms.me Blais.
Irregular migration
As a country that is not immune to the influences of irregular migration and the flow of fentanyl across the US-Mexico border, Canada will also need to be part of this conversation, which should largely dominate the agenda. .
U.S. Customs and Border Protection authorities reported nearly 2.4 million deportations and arrests at or near the southern border during the past fiscal year, a 37% increase from to the previous year. There would be a post-pandemic increase in irregular migration in both directions across the northern border.
Biden’s visit to the southern border on Sunday followed a new crackdown on irregular migrants from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, in addition to existing restrictions on Venezuelan migrants.
The United States plans to welcome 30,000 new immigrants per month from these four countries over the next two years, provided they are eligible to work and enter the country legally.
Brian Nichols, US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, made it clear during a roundtable at the Wilson Center on Friday that his country’s unique ties to Canada will not be lost in Mexico.
“It’s a family conversation in a way that you often don’t have with other nations,” said Brian Nichols. The willingness to advance our common future in these conversations is something that really stands out. »
Canada, however, does not want to be equated with Mexico when it comes to its relations with the United States, points out Scotty Greenwood, executive director of the Canadian American Business Council. “He wants to have his own unique relationship with the United States, so we’ll see how Canada does with the North American idea. »
President Biden has yet to visit Canada in person since taking office — a longstanding bilateral tradition that usually comes soon after a presidential inauguration but was short-circuited in 2021 by the pandemic.
This week’s meetings in Mexico could provide a new indication of when Mr Biden’s long-promised trip to Canada – confirmed over the summer, but cut short again when the president himself tested positive to COVID-19 – could finally take place.