Harper praises Bush at New Orleans summit of North America leaders

Where were the demonstrators in Ottawa last week, demanding that Harper raise human rights issues with Bush and Calderón? Or do they only do that when Harper goes to China?

[ 29 April 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said his nation would be open to any adjustments that a future U.S. president might seek in the trade agreement, but he said he sees no reason to make any substantive changes.

"I can tell you when I meet business people, not just from our country, but from around the continent, the benefits of our NAFTA relationship are without question," he said. "What all the focus is in our discussions is how to make it work better, how to make the border thinner, how to make commerce flow more quickly, more freely."

Both Prime Minister Harper and President Calderon also backed President Bush's argument for a trade deal with Colombia, saying that expansion of trade in the western hemisphere benefits everyone. Mexico already has its own trade agreement with Colombia and Canada is beginning talks aimed at creating an agreement.

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The driving force of the SPP is the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) which is made up of 30 CEOs from some of the biggest corporations in North America (like ExxonMobil, Lockheed Martin, Suncor, Chevron, SNC-Lavalin and Royal Bank). Each year, the NACC presents a report to the political leaders of the U.S., Canada and Mexico that is a corporate policy menu that is then quickly implemented by the executive branch of each country.

This year's NACC report has a defensive tone, reflecting the widespread unpopularity of NAFTA and increasing resistance to the SPP around the continent. With classic understatement, the report notes that the benefits of NAFTA are not "universally understood." It then goes on to observe that: "Unless we work together to turn around public misperceptions, other specific recommendations to improve North American competitiveness will become largely irrelevant. To the extent that NAFTA itself continues to be a target, efforts to 'deepen the NAFTA' will be largely unsuccessful."

That gloomy corporate spirit was echoed in the leaders' news conference at the conclusion of the Summit. U.S. President George Bush showed his exasperation at the strong opposition in the U.S. Congress to the proposed Columbia/U.S. trade agreement and to the promises of Democratic candidates to renegotiate NAFTA. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper floated the idle threat that Canada may somehow restrict oil and gas exports to the U.S. if NAFTA is renegotiated. And Mexican President Felipe Calderon faced tough questions about the blockade under way in the Mexican Congress to prevent the privatization of Mexican state oil company Pemex and about vicious business sponsored TV ads which compare Mexican opposition leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to Hitler and Mussolini. - Source

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