Three Amigos and Pipelines that Keep Giving

Wednesday was the latest edition of the North American Leaders' Summit (NALS). Didn't know there was such a process? You wouldn't be alone. The NALS was created as part of the ill-fated Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) in 2005. In addition to all the other agenda items the three bureacracies agreed to work on at the time, the NALS was supposed to have given all that bureaucratic dirty work some political backing. In short, the annual meeting would signal that the North American agenda mattered to them.

Whether North America matters is a subject worthy of debate, and something I've addressed in earlier posts. The first few meetings of the NALS were relatively successful, partly because the "Three Amigos" that created the summit in the first place continued to attend. However, the NALS is not something that President Obama, President Nieto, or Prime Minster Harper created; it's not their baby, so why do it? The 2010 edition of the NALS actually never happened. Prime Minister Harper was busy doing things like hosting the G20 in Toronto and the NALS got set aside. Moreover, each meeting since 2005 has gotten shorter, and shorter. Some might say this is a sign of how great things are going in North America. Nonsense.


Any reasonable read of Tuesday's Summit would conclude that there wasn't much North America being discussed. American presidents always have to focus on a broader global agenda when meeting with counterparts abroad. There's no getting around that. However, he seemed particularly distracted during this Summit. He only spent a little over 8 hours on the ground in Toluca, Mexico and did not stay over night. The White House seemed more interested in touting a new executive order trimming red tape on Ex-Im Bank loans than anything to do with Canada or Mexico (see story). The President's Trade Promotion Authority proposal (see my piece in Diplomatic History about this) aimed at security Congressional approval for important trade liberalization initiatives like the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is facing stiff headwinds on Capitol Hill. Canada and Mexico are parties to the TPP negotiations, but that didn't appear to be the glue that held the NALS together. President Obama's immigration reform proposals, a long-standing agenda item with Mexico, seem stalled once again. It's an issue that continuously drives a wedge between Washington and Mexico City.

Canada and Mexico rarely have much to talk about and have little in common. The two don't know each other very well, and the NAFTA didn't do much to change that. Canada weakened its credibility in Mexico even further in 2009 with new visa restrictions on Mexican nationals entering Canada; something Mexican officials have not forgotten. Moreover, both Ottawa and Mexico City, but mostly Ottawa, have sought to "re-bilateralize" North America by trying to seek arrangements with Washington on their own. One needs to look hard to find the tangible benefits to Canada from having moved in this direction, and they certainly lost a willing partner on a range of important trilateral issues in Mexico City. Has anyone in Ottawa noticed the recent Mexican energy sector reforms? Any thought been given to a trilateral climate change initiative?

Finally, there's this thing about a pipeline that has bedevilled Canada-U.S. relations for the last several years. In Toluca, Harper and Obama repeated their positions; Harper that the process has been conclusive enough, Obama that the process will play itself out properly. Stalemate.

In short, the Three Amigos had things to talk about, but had nothing they wanted to talk about.

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

A quick note about Keystone XL. Today a judge in Nebraska ruled that the legislature had violated the state's constitution by giving approval power for the the revised Keystone XL pipeline route to the governor (story). Decisions on routing that would impact property rights were the domain of the Public Utilities Commission and could not be given to the governor. In all likelihood, this is a small skirmish in the larger battle that is Keystone XL.

But, Keystone XL is increasingly a lot like the old softwood lumber debate that plagued Canada-U.S. relations for most of the 1980s and 1990s. For many Canadians, Keystone, like softwood lumber before it, is less and less about the merits of the issue. It is a barometer for the relationship, and looks as if it will continue being so (for Canadians, anyway) for some time.

The last, and most important point, about today's ruling in Nebraska is an adage from an old friend about the American political system that fits nearly every time: It's not over until it's over, and then it's not over.