Three Friends Without a Joint Plan

In Toluca, we did not hear about a great vision that the leaders of the United States, Canada and Mexico share. The union between ideas and force was not there to convince us that now is North America’s moment. There was no change in the narrative, nor was anything introduced to the conversation.

Washington, Ottawa and Mexico City did not pledge as a unified block to make the decision to turn North America into the most competitive region in the world. The initiatives for energy, education, the facilitation of trade and tourism, and environmental and security cooperation represent an announcement of what each is prepared to do for its own part, but they are far from setting up a roadmap in respect to what the three governments propose to do together.

The attention and main concerns of the leaders are somewhere else. Internal political demands dominate their agenda.

President Barack Obama still has 35 months left in power, but some have already begun calling him a “lame duck.” Mexicans continue to admire him, but he has turned into the “deporter-in-chief” of our migrant compatriots. He found time in Toluca to preoccupy himself with Ukraine and Venezuela, but his idea of giving the day to North America through the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement faces a serious obstacle from the negative stance of his own party’s lawmakers toward granting him the authorization to negotiate it on the fast track.

Scandals plagued the year 2013 for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and after eight years at the head of the government, he is showing signs of wear: Sixty-eight percent of voters think he is dishonest and not accountable. In the polls for the federal election that will take place on Nov. 19, 2015, he is 7 points behind Justin Trudeau, the leader of the liberals and son of the legendary Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Additionally, Mexico is not among Harper’s priorities. On his recent tour of Israel, whose bilateral trade with Canada has risen to $1.4 billion and now occupies the 44th highest place among the destinations for Canadian exports, he brought an entourage of more than 200 people. Mexico occupies the fifth highest place, and its bilateral trade with Canada has risen to $31 billion, but the prime minister came to our country with a rather discrete entourage, and he refused to cut the visa requirement established by his government for Mexicans.

President Enrique Peña Nieto received praise for his recent reforms in Mexico, but the grave problems of public insecurity in many areas of our country overshadow his vision of making North America a manufacturing and logistics platform that takes advantage of its synergies and complementary natural resources, human capital and technology.

Each summit of governmental leaders is seen as an extraordinary opportunity for them to perform a historical milestone, loosen negotiations stuck in the mud, propose shared solutions to common problems and draw great visions that can motivate their citizens. Invariably, the facts trail behind the great purposes expressed in the summits, and Toluca has not been the exception.

Those of us in the United States, Canada and Mexico are involved in the exchange of negotiations, cooperation between municipalities and states, joint projects of investigation between universities, common cultural and artistic initiatives, and recognition of the contribution of migrant workers to local development. We have the responsibility to deliver better results than those of these three “friends.”