En tu idioma /In your own language

Eduardo Del Buey
La Jornada Maya

Martes 12 de julio, 2016

The “Three Amigos” Summit in Ottawa last week saw a major shift in results. In previous meetings Canada’s former Conservative Prime Minister showed little affinity for his two southern colleagues and Canada was on a strictly conservative path on almost all issues. As well, his brand of brinksmanship diplomacy with respect to the Keystone Pipeline did not sit well with the Obama administration, which chose to cancel it despite the impact on the Canadian economy.

The bonhommie that marked this latest NAFTA Summit was evident in both body language and in concluding statements. Leaders proposed joint action on climate change, security, clean energy, market access, and other issues on the table.

As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on June 29, “Today, the leaders of Canada, the United States, and Mexico come together to address shared challenges, knowing cooperation pays off, and that working in partnership always beats going it alone.”

To mark President Peña Nieto´s state visit to Canada immediately before the Summit, Canada announced it would lift the visitors visa requirement for Mexican citizens on December 1. This was welcomed indeed by the many Mexicans who visit Canada each year but who have felt burdened by a cumbersome visa application process.

While this is a positive outcome, electoral politics could spell a quick end to the honeymoon.

The US is in the midst of a bitter presidential election. Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump have expressed varying degrees of opposition to major trade deals. They will try to bash NAFTA to varying degrees as the presidential campaign heats up, with Trump leading the way.

A Bloomberg/Selzer poll in March found that just 29 per cent of Americans supported NAFTA, while 44 per cent thought it was a bad deal. The poll found that “Large majorities or pluralities favor policies protecting domestic jobs over lower prices, describe the North American Free Trade Agreement as being bad for the U.S., and even prefer a U.S. company building a nearby factory to employ 1,000 workers over a foreign owner that would hire twice as many”.

Yet McLarty Associates, a leading Washington political consultancy, has estimated that “since 2010, the United States has added 1 million manufacturing jobs. Meanwhile, exports to Canada support more than 1.5 million jobs in the United States. In Mexico, the manufacturing sector is forecast to grow nearly 4?percent per year over the next 18 years”.

Sanders’s and Clinton’s wooing support from organized labor may also influence their stand on NAFTA, since many voters believe that many high paying unionized manufacturing jobs have left the US over the past twenty years, and have been replaced by low-wage low-skill jobs in the service sector.

Trump, his anti-Mexican rhetoric and potential ideological differences with Trudeau do not augur well for North American camaraderie under a Trump administration.

Clinton, with her eye on the rust-belt swing states, has also voiced concerns about trade deals including NAFTA. She seems to accept the opposition that a majority of US voters have to the deal that has, in their eyes, cost millions of well-paying US jobs and shifted manufacturing abroad.

The recent results of the British European Union (EU) referendum (Brexit) have called into question among many the impact of major trade agreements on the general public.
In the United States the pendulum has swung away from integration and is tilting more towards sovereignty. This is bad news for NAFTA supporters in all three countries.

In Mexico, public opinion with respect to NAFTA appears to be more positive. Indeed, in April polling by BGC/Excelsior pegged support for the treaty at 54 per cent, against 26 per cent against.
Mexico has created many new jobs in the higher tech industries, and is a major regional player in aerospace and an important global player in the automotive industry. However, income inequality has grown and there is a desperate need for opportunities for lower income groups.

While President Peña Nieto is a strong proponent of NAFTA, his successor may prove to be less so.

The ruling PRI and conservative opposition party PAN continue to support NAFTA and a vision of North American integration.

However, on the left, MORENA leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has a chance of winning the 2018 election if current trends continue. He is opposed to NAFTA, believing it has benefitted a small elite while disenfranchising Mexico’s millions of poor citizens. It remains to be seen how a Lopez Obrador administration would treat the relationship with Canada and the United States given the Mexican Left’s traditional suspicions of its northern neighbor and ambivalence towards Canada.

So the “Three Amigos” should try to make hay while the sun shines.

The post 2016 scenario appears uncertain as voters in the US and, later in 2018, Mexico, come to grips with competing views of the future, and some candidates seek to address a rapidly changing global economy with populist nostalgia rather than viable strategies and policies.

In this post-factual era, anything is possible.

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