Post by Bozur on Apr 2, 2005 16:09:30 GMT -5
NYTimes.com > Opinion
OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS
Hands Across North America
By RAFAEL FERNÁNDEZ de CASTRO and ROSSANA FUENTES BERAIN
Published: March 28, 2005
Mexico City — FOR all its bureaucratic faults, the European Union represents an important advance in the relations between nations, transforming once bitter and war-prone rivals into a model of cooperation, prosperity and community. The United States, on the other hand, blessed with two stable and peaceful neighbors, has no need for such a tight regional alliance. Or does it?
The meeting last week among the three North American leaders - President Bush, President Vicente Fox of Mexico and Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada - at Mr. Bush's Texas ranch may have represented the beginning of serious discussion of that question. In their joint statement, the participants said their goal was a "security and prosperity partnership" for the continent. This shows a recognition that an absence of military conflict is not a good enough reason to avoid tighter regional alliances, particularly in a globalizing world where competition comes not only from other nations, but increasingly from other blocs of countries.
The idea that political stability could be a building block of economic prosperity and improved quality of life was something that Jean Monnet, the architect of the European Union, understood when he brought his long-term vision out of the ashes of a bitter war. And in 50 years, what was once simply a trade area has turned into a real political community, fostering peace and advancing the economic development of all its members.
By the time North Americans got serious about even limited continental cooperation, at the end of the cold war, it was enough to think solely in economic terms. Thus the North American Free Trade Agreement seemed sufficient to bring about prosperity and draw our countries closer together. But 11 years after it came into effect, Nafta is clearly an insufficient response to the 9/11 attacks, the strengthening of the euro, the rise of China as an economic and political power, and many other major challenges. We need to shut off the automatic pilot under which the countries of North America have been flying for the last decade.
We must move beyond just managing trade and into constructing a new relationship that has four principal goals: enhancing security cooperation; further strengthening economic ties; closing Mexico's development gap; and, certain to be the most controversial, building an institutional architecture to bring a North American community closer to reality.
First, security: the attacks of Sept. 11 and the rise of global terrorism show the need for a safety perimeter around the continent. The Mexican and the United States governments are deeply troubled by intelligence reports that Al Qaeda might be laying plans for an attack across America's southern border. But simply putting more guards and towers in the Arizona desert won't keep America safe. In place of the inefficient borders between the countries today, we need a policy on a strong external continental border.
Each country would of course keep sovereignty over the edges of its own territory, but each would have to meet border security requirements agreed upon by all three parties to ensure there are no weak links. This wall around the continent would, in turn, allow us to make internal North American crossings more flexible; the European model, with its uniform visa requirements, is worth following.
As for the economic cooperation, we've come a long way thanks to Nafta. Nevertheless there are obvious points of contention - that trucks loaded in Mexico cannot be driven in the United States, that Canada cannot export soft lumber to the United States, and that Mexico will not accept fructose from the United States. Not only must we resolve these disagreements, we must find also a way to compete and win against both China and Europe.
A good starting point would be a shared customs union, with the three countries setting tariff policies in conjunction and protecting each other from improper trade practices by the rest of the world. In addition, the cumbersome "rules of origin" laws that affect products made in North America with parts made elsewhere should be thrown out the window.
All three partners would gain by closing Mexico's development gap. Clearly Mexico itself must undertake reforms in terms of its energy, fiscal and labor policies (opening its oil industry to foreign investment is an obvious start). But we need help. The poorer nations of Europe benefited for years from compensation funds - money given by the rich countries to be spent on roads, electricity grids, modernized farms and factories - that enabled countries like Ireland, Spain and Greece to join the 20th century. Now those former poor relations are important exporters and markets for their European neighbors, and their most enterprising workers are no longer desperate to emigrate. Following the European model would eventually give Canada and the United States a better trading partner to the south, and a more prosperous Mexico would result in less illegal immigration, making cooperation on border security more practical.
Finally, the key to achieving all these goals is creating permanent three-party institutions. Meetings like the one last week should be made annual, and the nations' defense, justice and intelligence chiefs should also meet every year to develop a common plan to fight terrorism, drug trafficking and immigrant smuggling. In time, the idea would be to create a permanent North American commission with cabinet-level representatives from each country; it would be charged not only with firming up nuts-and-bolts agreements on trade and security, but also with working toward an eventual goal of a true North American union.
Undoubtedly, this level of cooperation would be a hard sell to Americans, who would assume they would have the most to lose. But simply maintaining the status quo will not help the United States maintain its dominance in a changing world. Just as the Bush administration has articulated a radical strategy of military pre-emption in its national security strategy, it needs a similarly bold approach for defending the country's economic future.
Maybe, just maybe, the men gathered at the Crawford ranch could some day be seen as the Jean Monnets of their age, the founding fathers of the North American Community.
Rafael Fernández de Castro and Rossana Fuentes Berain are professors at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico and, respectively, editor and managing editor of the journal Foreign Affairs en Español.
OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS
Hands Across North America
By RAFAEL FERNÁNDEZ de CASTRO and ROSSANA FUENTES BERAIN
Published: March 28, 2005
Mexico City — FOR all its bureaucratic faults, the European Union represents an important advance in the relations between nations, transforming once bitter and war-prone rivals into a model of cooperation, prosperity and community. The United States, on the other hand, blessed with two stable and peaceful neighbors, has no need for such a tight regional alliance. Or does it?
The meeting last week among the three North American leaders - President Bush, President Vicente Fox of Mexico and Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada - at Mr. Bush's Texas ranch may have represented the beginning of serious discussion of that question. In their joint statement, the participants said their goal was a "security and prosperity partnership" for the continent. This shows a recognition that an absence of military conflict is not a good enough reason to avoid tighter regional alliances, particularly in a globalizing world where competition comes not only from other nations, but increasingly from other blocs of countries.
The idea that political stability could be a building block of economic prosperity and improved quality of life was something that Jean Monnet, the architect of the European Union, understood when he brought his long-term vision out of the ashes of a bitter war. And in 50 years, what was once simply a trade area has turned into a real political community, fostering peace and advancing the economic development of all its members.
By the time North Americans got serious about even limited continental cooperation, at the end of the cold war, it was enough to think solely in economic terms. Thus the North American Free Trade Agreement seemed sufficient to bring about prosperity and draw our countries closer together. But 11 years after it came into effect, Nafta is clearly an insufficient response to the 9/11 attacks, the strengthening of the euro, the rise of China as an economic and political power, and many other major challenges. We need to shut off the automatic pilot under which the countries of North America have been flying for the last decade.
We must move beyond just managing trade and into constructing a new relationship that has four principal goals: enhancing security cooperation; further strengthening economic ties; closing Mexico's development gap; and, certain to be the most controversial, building an institutional architecture to bring a North American community closer to reality.
First, security: the attacks of Sept. 11 and the rise of global terrorism show the need for a safety perimeter around the continent. The Mexican and the United States governments are deeply troubled by intelligence reports that Al Qaeda might be laying plans for an attack across America's southern border. But simply putting more guards and towers in the Arizona desert won't keep America safe. In place of the inefficient borders between the countries today, we need a policy on a strong external continental border.
Each country would of course keep sovereignty over the edges of its own territory, but each would have to meet border security requirements agreed upon by all three parties to ensure there are no weak links. This wall around the continent would, in turn, allow us to make internal North American crossings more flexible; the European model, with its uniform visa requirements, is worth following.
As for the economic cooperation, we've come a long way thanks to Nafta. Nevertheless there are obvious points of contention - that trucks loaded in Mexico cannot be driven in the United States, that Canada cannot export soft lumber to the United States, and that Mexico will not accept fructose from the United States. Not only must we resolve these disagreements, we must find also a way to compete and win against both China and Europe.
A good starting point would be a shared customs union, with the three countries setting tariff policies in conjunction and protecting each other from improper trade practices by the rest of the world. In addition, the cumbersome "rules of origin" laws that affect products made in North America with parts made elsewhere should be thrown out the window.
All three partners would gain by closing Mexico's development gap. Clearly Mexico itself must undertake reforms in terms of its energy, fiscal and labor policies (opening its oil industry to foreign investment is an obvious start). But we need help. The poorer nations of Europe benefited for years from compensation funds - money given by the rich countries to be spent on roads, electricity grids, modernized farms and factories - that enabled countries like Ireland, Spain and Greece to join the 20th century. Now those former poor relations are important exporters and markets for their European neighbors, and their most enterprising workers are no longer desperate to emigrate. Following the European model would eventually give Canada and the United States a better trading partner to the south, and a more prosperous Mexico would result in less illegal immigration, making cooperation on border security more practical.
Finally, the key to achieving all these goals is creating permanent three-party institutions. Meetings like the one last week should be made annual, and the nations' defense, justice and intelligence chiefs should also meet every year to develop a common plan to fight terrorism, drug trafficking and immigrant smuggling. In time, the idea would be to create a permanent North American commission with cabinet-level representatives from each country; it would be charged not only with firming up nuts-and-bolts agreements on trade and security, but also with working toward an eventual goal of a true North American union.
Undoubtedly, this level of cooperation would be a hard sell to Americans, who would assume they would have the most to lose. But simply maintaining the status quo will not help the United States maintain its dominance in a changing world. Just as the Bush administration has articulated a radical strategy of military pre-emption in its national security strategy, it needs a similarly bold approach for defending the country's economic future.
Maybe, just maybe, the men gathered at the Crawford ranch could some day be seen as the Jean Monnets of their age, the founding fathers of the North American Community.
Rafael Fernández de Castro and Rossana Fuentes Berain are professors at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico and, respectively, editor and managing editor of the journal Foreign Affairs en Español.