The Future of North American Integration: Beyond NAFTA

Chapter 3: Integrating North America

73 3 Integrating North America A Mexican Perspective Andrés Rozental When Mexican president-elect Vicente Fox traveled to the United States and Canada shortly after his unprecedented victory at the polls in July 2000, he brought with him a courageous proposal to the other two members of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): After seven years under a free trade agreement, it was time to set the longer-term goal of creating a North American Community. Only by putting forward such an audacious vision, Fox argued , could governments and people in all three countries work toward a fixed objective. Even if it were to take several decades, moving steadily toward such a target would ensure that the goal would eventually be reached. Although his unorthodox suggestion was met with both skepticism and a certain degree of disdain by traditional foreign policy establishments in Washington, D.C., Ottawa, and Mexico 74 Integrating North America City, Fox set the agenda for a discussion that now occupies policy planners, academics, and public opinionmakers in all three countries. Whereas preceding Mexican administrations had often been on the defensive regarding some of the ideas surrounding a NAFTA-plus agenda, the newly elected National Action Party leadership decided that it was time to seize the initiative and publicly present the proposal for a North American Community along the lines of the European model. This change of tactics was disconcerting both to Mexicans and their neighbors because it marked the first time that an initiative of this importance had not been consulted on before its public manifestation. Nevertheless, Fox’s idea struck a chord with much of the media and among think tanks in the United States and Canada. A president of Mexico had managed what many had believed impossible—to unseat the Institutional Revolutionary Party from power and put an end to seventy-one years of hegemonic rule. This in turn led policymakers in the rest of North America to give attention and a higher priority to the new administration in Mexico City. A few months after Fox’s inauguration, during the Quebec City Summit of the Americas, the leaders of Mexico, the United States, and Canada signed a declaration that, among other things, calls for a further consolidation in the integration process. This would be achieved both by fully imple- 75 Integrating North America menting and strengthening NAFTA and by exploring new avenues of cooperation that the three nations might adopt to take advantage of the enormous, but as yet unrealized, potential of the North American region. The leaders also referred to the need for nurturing the notion of a North American “community” within their respective societies, as well as for generating new ideas on how to further the trilateral relationship and strengthen the association initiated by NAFTA. In calling for a North American Community, the leaders took what in effect was a first step toward moving the North American Free Trade Agreement beyond its trade-specific agenda and opening the door for a discussion on NAFTAplus issues such as migration, energy, common security, and a possible common currency. Considering that, even after eight years of success as a trade and investment promoting mechanism, NAFTA still does not have a strong constituency in any of the three countries, the political decision to advance the discussion beyond trade and economic issues represents an important change in policy and a move forward. Between Quebec and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, some progress was made in identifying the priority issues for discussion within the NAFTA-plus agenda. Initial trilateral meetings were held on energy, migration, and border policy, while both Canada and Mexico’s bilateral agenda with the United States continued as before. 76 Integrating North America In responding to the commitment undertaken in Quebec, the Mexican government has established a working group within the federal system to begin reflecting on how other international experiences with integration could be useful in identifying objectives and alternative instruments for a parallel, ongoing process in North America. Certain key elements have been identified in approaching the goal of moving from a free trade agreement to a true North American Community. The experiences of the European Union, Mercosur, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and other successful—as well as less successful— integration schemes have served as guideposts for choosing those elements of a regional proposal that might be applicable to the North American case...