América del Norte

Rafael Fernández de Castro

24-Abr-2008

In the middle of the 21^st century, despite the commerce with the US that has been the engine of the limited economic successes of the past 15 years, we continue to resort to the nationalism of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

To judge by the results of the recent meeting of the leaders of North America in New Orleans, the idea of the forgers of the North American Free Trade Agreement, to create an economic community in that region, is beginning to vanish, to convert itself into a mere historical [foot]note of a revolutionary and audacious concept that would have contributed much to the prosperity of the Mexican, US and Canadian people.

In New Orleans, the North American leaders promised to continue defending NAFTA. To resolve the bottlenecks in the Mexican transport situation, in which the letter of the treaty has yet to be fulfilled. Or perhaps a timid homogenization of the industrialization standards.

In New Orleans there were two kinds of meetings: the bilaterial meetings and the trilateral meetings. On one side, were the Mexican president, along with his counterparts in the US and Canada. And on the other, were four trilateral meetings, a dinner, a breakfast, two social occasions and two workshops –one with business interests and the other with the Secretaries of State, those charged with security and commerce.

The bilateral meeting of the US and Canada maintained a tone of strategic partners. Bush expressed gratitude to his Canadian counterpart, Harper, for his decision to maintain troops in Afghanistan and to help other allies such as France continue backing the US invasion. In the meeting with Mexico no agreement was reached not even over a basi and cheap plan –the Merida Initiative—that will begin to be debated in the Capitol. There continues to exist in North America two intense bilateral relations (US-Canada and US-Mexico), a more distant bilateral (Canada-Mexico) and an incipient trilateral relationship.

There are four reasons that I’m inclined to consider that the economic community of North American is evaporating and will remain on the shelves of history. However a decision in New Orleans with an eye towards transforming the current mechanism, the Association for the Prosperity and Security of North America (ASPAN for its initials in Spanish) and converting it into an annual meeting of leaders of that region to begin in Mexico in 2009, permits me to maintain a small hope.

There are no institutions that can serve as engines to propel the integration. The negotiators of the treaty were optimists or naïve to not create institutions that could put into motion the stages of most integration. The Mexicans admit the premise of the US negotiators –that NAFTA should be a mechanism of the market and should not create unnecessary bureaucracies. The only thing that was created were 22 workgroups and a commission on free trade. The groups practically never work and the commission is nothing more than a annual meeting of Commercial ministries. And of course those do not have the power that the the federal governments require.

The US has turned inward and is transforming itself into a distrustful empire. Two enormous storm clouds threaten its social health and possibly its relations with its southern neighbor: market protectionism and anti-immigrant and racist sentiments towards Mexicans. This US where fear has turned into the best electoral weapon –Bush used it with precision in 2004 and 2006 and now the Democratic candidate Hilliary Clinton is using it as well—is very distinct from the optimistic country that [originally] negotiated NAFTA.

Canada has preferred to maintain a special relationship with the US and not risk the trilateralization of the terms. The Canadians understand that their prosperity depends on maintaining the flow of commerce and investment with its neighbor. But that conviction sometimes turns into paranoia. Why think of a North American security perimeter? Why think of a real homogenization of north American industrialization? Ottawa acts under the schema of two speeds in its North American relationships: accelerate with its southern neighbor and put the brakes on its relationship with Mexico and trilateral initiatives.

Mexico finds itself adrift. There is no consensus between our political, economic and intellectual elites of what kind of relationship we’d like to have with our neighbors. Full into the 21^st century and in spite of the commerce with the US that has been the engine of the limited successes of the past 15 years, we continue taking refuge in the nationalism of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, but it is an embarrassment in the 21^st. There is no sense of urgency in a good part of our political class. While China continues advancing like a locomotive, a good part of our political class thinks no longer in maintaining their prebendas. Like journalists/dogs or those of the New Alliance that anchor the dadivosos party subsidiaries.

Calderón, Bush and Harper opened a window of opportunity when they announced the meeting, not of ASPAN but of a North American summit in 2009. Calderon’s government has a year to prepare a list of proposals that cannot reject the new tenant of the White House. A daring and intelligent proposal as NAFTA was in its moment. Beyond that, Calderon has a year to put his house in order, show that the Mexican economy continues to be attractive and awake to the interests of the USians and Canadians in drawing closer to Mexico and deepending the economic association.

rfcastro@itam.mx