Obama,
Calderón and Harper to Stress North American Cooperation at Summit
By
Eric Green
Washington — Improving North America’s economic competitiveness
in global markets and addressing together the challenges of climate change and clean energy should be key components in the
August 9-10 summit of the leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada, a group of policy analysts tells America.gov.
Jim Jones, U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 1993-1997, said agreement on
a “grand vision” by President Barack Obama, Mexican President Felipe Calderón and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen
Harper to promote better economic integration would help the region become a major competitor in the world economy. Such improved
integration, Jones said, would not be similar to the European Union economic model because a “very strong sense of sovereignty”
exists among the three North American nations.
But Jones said the meeting could work toward reducing bottlenecks in the
flow of commerce across borders while meeting security concerns and promoting better consistency in trade rules and regulations.
The leaders’ summit was created in March 2005 and is held annually. This year’s
summit will be in Guadalajara, Mexico. (See “North American Leaders to Meet August 9-10.”)
Jones, vice-chairman of the newly created U.S. Homeland Security Advisory
Council’s Southwest Border Task Force, said other important goals of the meeting are to improve cooperation in the HIN1
influenza outbreak and to show support for Calderón’s fight against Mexican drug trafficking organizations.
At a July 24 forum in Washington on the summit, Jones discussed public
opinion polls of Mexican citizens showing increased desire to end that fight as the death toll mounts among those involved
in the drug trade and the innocent civilian population.
Any slackening in the campaign against drug traffickers, Jones said, would
be detrimental to Mexico and pose a threat to the United States.
The forum was sponsored by the Council of the Americas.
“I think Calderón will be very courageous, forthright and determined”
against the drug traffickers, but he needs continued financial aid from the United States to continue that effort, Jones said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said July 16 that the United States has
worked very closely with the Mexican government to provide additional support for police training. “It is our assessment
that the steps taken and the commitment demonstrated by the Calderón administration is deserving of confidence,” Clinton
said. (See “Remarks after North American Trilateral Ministerial Meeting.”)
OBAMA’S GLOBAL POPULARITY SMOOTHS DIALOGUE
James Blanchard, a former U.S. ambassador to Canada, said the meeting
of the three North American leaders allows them to get comfortable with each other in dealing with common interests.
Blanchard said the fact that Obama is “hugely popular all over the
world” makes it much easier for the three leaders to have a dialogue and talk about cooperation in trade, in harmonizing
rules to meet the global climate challenge, in financial regulation, in supporting Calderón’s fight against organized
crime in Mexico, and “how our economies can work together and not subtract from each other.”
One coordinated response between the United States and Canada that went
largely unnoticed in the news “because it worked so well,” Blanchard said, involved a joint effort to save the
two countries’ auto industries. Blanchard said that as a member of the board of directors of the new Chrysler-Fiat joint
venture, he welcomed the fact the two counties worked “hand in glove” to keep major auto companies from liquidation.
Blanchard said he hoped the three leaders could reach agreement at Guadalajara
on a mutual strategy to produce clean energy without sacrificing economic progress in advance of a United Nations climate-change
conference scheduled for Copenhagen in December.
NORTH AMERICAN COOPERATION AIDS MUTUAL SECURITY
Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, said North
American cooperation is critically important to the well-being of the three countries. Canada and Mexico remain the top trade
and energy partners of the United States, and the two neighbors affect all aspects of the U.S. economy, he said.
Farnsworth is impressed that this will be Obama’s third or fourth
meeting with Calderón since being elected U.S. president in November 2008, which he said shows Obama’s “engagement
to continue building the U.S.-Mexican relationship.”
The meeting in Guadalajara, Farnsworth said, will set the framework in
the next few years for dealing with trilateral concerns in such areas as climate change, producing clean energy, and migrant
flows across the countries’ mutual borders.
Robert Pastor, co-director of American University’s Center for North
American Studies, said the three leaders should be commended for holding the summit and continuing a tradition of mutual importance
to their countries.
Pastor said the three leaders need to explain to their respective citizens
why a “different, more collaborative relationship” among the United States, Canada, and Mexico is so fundamental
for North American security and prosperity.
——————————
Eric
Green is a Special Correspondent of America.gov. June 30, 2009, Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department
of State
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