PEACE & SECURITY | Creating a more stable world
18 April 2008
United States Values Strong Ties with Canada, Mexico
North American leaders meet at Security and Prosperity Partnership
Washington -- The United States has no closer neighbors than Canada and Mexico, says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, making the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America a unique regional forum on trade and security issues.
“The relationship between the United States, Canada and Mexico is one of the most critical from the point of view of American foreign policy,” Rice says.
President Bush will meet with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderón in New Orleans April 21-22 as the three neighbors celebrate the 15th anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has helped spur economic growth and improve livelihoods across the region. With a combined gross domestic product of $15 trillion, the three countries are each other’s top trading partners, exchanging goods and services worth nearly $900 billion in 2007 -- about $2.4 billion a day -- according to the State Department.
The partnership seeks to build on NAFTA’s success, Canadian, U.S. and Mexican officials say, “to build a safer, more secure and economically dynamic North America, while respecting the sovereignty, laws, unique heritage and culture of each country.”
Top priorities for the partnership’s meeting in New Orleans include:
• enhancing regional competitiveness by combating counterfeit goods, streamlining business regulations and encouraging collaboration among North American businesses;
• safeguarding consumers across the region by strengthening cooperation on inspections to identify unsafe food and other products;
• encouraging environmental innovation to bring new fuel-efficiency technologies into the marketplace;
• reaching new agreements aimed at securing the borders while facilitating travel and trade; and
• strengthening emergency management cooperation to help communities better prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters.
Launched by President Bush in 2005, the partnership is a forum to help the three North American neighbors develop common approaches to transnational security challenges and sustain shared economic expansion through continued streamlining of trade regulations. The leaders met in Cancun, Mexico, in 2006, and Montebello, Québec, in 2007.
The partnership is composed of several working groups from the three countries that meet periodically on trade and security issues, as well as the North American Competitiveness Council, a round table of business leaders and nongovernmental experts who offer advice and insight to the partnership on ways to help the region.
“Trade and prosperity and a good life for the people of North America is not just the work of governments alone,” says Rice.
The partnership’s accomplishments to date include a system to notify each other of potentially dangerous consumer products and coordinate efforts against counterfeit goods; improved information exchange on the U.S.-Mexican border and expedited commercial crossing on the U.S.-Canadian border; and an agreement to speed data sharing among national laboratories for better tracking of infectious disease outbreaks.
Other items on the agenda, according to the joint statement from a meeting of the countries’ foreign ministers, include talks on confronting transnational organized crime, including trafficking in people and narcotics, money laundering and illegal arms.
Rice’s remarks are available from America.gov.
For additional information, see the Security and Prosperity Partnership Web site.
