Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Mar 14 2005 (IPS) — To consolidate North American integration, the region’s leaders must reverse the growing development gap between Canada and the United States on the one hand, and Mexico on the other, according to a "Chairmen’s Statement" by an influential task force released here Monday.

The Statement, which was issued by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), also calls for the establishment of a North American Advisory Council (NAAC) that will prepare and monitor moves to further integrate the region over the next five years, including the holding of annual summit meetings between leaders of the three nations.

"To build on the advances of the past decade and to craft an agenda for the future, we propose the creation by 2010 of a community to enhance security, prosperity, and opportunity for all North Americans," the Statement, which was signed by the three task force co-chairs, declared.

"The boundaries of the community would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter. Within this area, the movement of people and products would be legal, orderly, and safe," it asserted.

The task force’s three co-chairmen – former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance John P. Manley, former Mexican Finance Minister Pedro Aspe, and former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld – signed the statement as heads of the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America of the CFR in association with the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

The 12-page Statement was released in advance of the next tri-national summit to take place Mar. 23 in Texas where U.S. President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, and Mexican President Vicente Fox are expected to review recent progress made under the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and consider next steps.

Lauded by free trade advocates, NAFTA’s numerous critics say it has launched a race-to-the-bottom in wages, undermined democratic control of domestic policy-making and threatened health and environmental standards.

But despite the explosive growth in trade and investment among the three NAFTA countries over the past 12 years, North American affairs have generally been gotten surprising little attention from the Bush administration which has been far more focused since the Sep. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon on the "war on terror", the Middle East, and relations with Europe.

Mexico’s Fox has been particularly disappointed by Bush’s lack of interest. Fox had been hoping for a major breakthrough on immigration that would have made it easier for Mexicans to enter the U.S. and to remain there to work when the 9/11 attacks took place, but since then immigration reform has been put on the back burner, while the political climate inside the U.S. has generally become more hostile to immigration.

Indeed, Bush’s failure to deliver substantial immigration reform is often cited as one of the major causes for the steady decline in the public standing of Fox and his PAN party. Many analysts here now believe that the 2006 presidential elections will be won by the PRD, Mexico’s most left-wing mainstream party and one that has been most sceptical about the benefits of NAFTA and North American integration.

Ties between the U.S. and Canada have also become somewhat more strained, largely due to overwhelming opposition by Washington’s northern neighbours to its 2003 invasion of Iraq and the Bush administration’s antagonism toward the UN and multilateralism in general.

Indeed, Canadian public opinion has become so disenchanted with Washington that Martin, who was seen as more pro-U.S. than his predecessor, Jean Chretien, was forced earlier this month to withdraw from Bush administration’s plans to build a missile defence shield for both countries.

None of these developments alters the fact that the economies of all three nations have become increasingly integrated. U.S. trade with its North American neighbours is much greater than its trade with the European Union (EU), Japan and China combined, while Canada and Mexico are now the two largest exporters of oil to the United States.

All three nations are now "liberal democracies, committed to protecting individual rights, upholding the rule of law, ensuring equality of opportunity for our citizens, and achieving a reasonable balance between the market and the state."

Further integration thus promises "enormous benefits" to citizens of the three countries, according to the report, which warns, however, that "these benefits are neither inevitable nor irreversible."

The three countries face three common challenges, including security threats from terrorists and criminal activity; threats to the region’s trade competitiveness as a result of global competition from China to India and expanded EU membership; and the widening of the "development gap" between the two northern members and Mexico.

"Low wages and lack of economic opportunity in parts of Mexico stimulate undocumented immigration and contribute to human suffering, which sometimes translates into criminality and violence", according to the report.

"AS A MATTER OF THEIR OWN NATIONAL INTERESTS (emphasis in original), all three countries should do more to encourage broad-based economic development in Mexico."

In addition to the importance of Mexico implementing publicly supported policies that will attract investment, the U.S. and Canada should establish a North American Investment Fund to create infrastructure that links the poorer parts of the Mexico to the markets in the north and support education and technical training for Mexican states and municipalities, the report urges.

Other steps to promote further integration include adopting a common external tariff on a sector-by-sector basis at the lowest rate consistent with international trade obligations, according to the report, which stresses that "unwieldy rules of origin" and regulatory differences among the three countries are raising the costs of trade rather than reducing them.

On the immigration front, the chairs called for creation of a border pass with biometric indicators that would expedite passage through customs and immigration throughout the region and the adoption of a unified Border Action Plan to boost regional security.

Such a plan would mean harmonising visa and asylum regulations, joint inspection of container traffic entering North American ports; syncronised screening and tracking of people, goods, and vessels, the establishment of a trinational threat intelligence centre and joint training for law-enforcement officials, and closer military cooperation.

The Statement also calls for the development of a North American energy and natural resource security strategy to protect energy infrastructure, fully exploit regional reserves, and reduce emissions and the expansion of educational exchange programmes among the three countries.