Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

When the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States met in Texas recently they underscored the deep ties and shared principles of the three countries. The Council-sponsored Task Force applauds the announced "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America," but proposes a more ambitious vision of a new community by 2010 and specific recommendations on how to achieve it.

Pointing to increased competition from the European Union and rising economic powers such as India and China in the eleven years since NAFTA took effect, co-chair Pedro C. Aspe, former Finance Minister of Mexico, said, "We need a vision for North America to address the new challenges." The Task Force establishes a blueprint for a powerhouse North American trading area that allows for the seamless movement of goods, increased labor mobility, and energy security.
"We are asking the leaders of the United States, Mexico, and Canada to be bold and adopt a vision of the future that is bigger than, and beyond, the immediate problems of the present," said co-chair John P. Manley, Former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. "They could be the architects of a new community of North America, not mere custodians of the status quo."

At a time of political transition in Canada and Mexico, the Task Force proposes new ideas to cope with continental challenges that should be the focus of debate in those two countries as well as the United States. To ensure a free, secure, just, and prosperous North America, the Task Force proposes a number of specific measures:

Make North America safer:

• Establish a common security perimeter by 2010.


• Develop a North American Border Pass with biometric identifiers.


• Develop a unified border action plan and expand border customs facilities.

Create a single economic space:

• Adopt a common external tariff.


• Allow for the seamless movement of goods within North America.


• Move to full labor mobility between Canada and the U.S.


• Develop a North American energy strategy that gives greater emphasis to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases -- a regional alternative to Kyoto.


• Review those sectors of NAFTA that were excluded.


• Develop and implement a North American regulatory plan that would include "open skies and open roads" and a unified approach for protecting consumers on food, health, and the environment.


• Expand temporary worker programs and create a "North American preference" for immigration for citizens of North America.

Spread benefits more evenly:

• Establish a North American Investment Fund to build infrastructure to connect Mexico's poorer regions in the south to the market to the north.


• Restructure and reform Mexico's public finances.


• Fully develop Mexican energy resources to make greater use of international technology and capital.

Institutionalize the partnership:

• Establish a permanent tribunal for trade and investment disputes.


• Convene an annual North American summit meeting.


• Establish a Tri-national Competition Commission to develop a common approach to trade remedies.


• Expand scholarships to study in the three countries and develop a network of Centers for North American Studies.

Co-chair William F. Weld, former Governor of Massachusetts and U.S. Assistant Attorney General, said, "We are three liberal democracies; we are adjacent; we are already intertwined economically; we have a great deal in common historically; culturally, we have a lot to learn from one another."