Mexico's Foreign Minister: Let's Anchor an Integrated North America Jose Antonio Meade - The Globe and Mail
go to original July 27, 2013

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, right, and Mexican president-elect Enrique Pena Nieto arrive to take part in a press conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, November 28, 2012. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

During the first years of the implementation of the North American free-trade agreement, commentators argued that it in fact stood for two bilateral agreements: the first between Canada and the United States, and the second between the United States and Mexico. This has now become an outdated point of view. Today, almost twenty years after its implementation, NAFTA is no longer considered a two-part deal between three countries. NAFTA is both a mirror and a motor of a far more integrated North American region.

In 1993, Canada and Mexico’s annual bilateral trade stood at $4.1-billion. Few could imagine back then that these two countries would trade more than eight times that amount today. If we add the value of imports measured by each country, and thus account for their trade through the United States, total bilateral trade adds up to $35-billion a year. Thousands of jobs, both in Canada and Mexico, stem from this exchange.

Canada and Mexico have more in common than being neighbors of the United States. They are friends and partners that share the vision of making North America the most competitive region in the world. Just last year, Mexico traded more goods with Canada than it did with Great Britain or Japan, and four and a half times what Brazil did.

Read the rest at The Globe and Mail

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