There were smiles, toasts and plenty of kind words for each other but Tuesday’s meeting between Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was not exactly the love-in between major trade partners that it may have appeared on the surface.
One trade expert quoted in the Canadian media predicted that Harper’s trip would be “an unmitigated disaster” if he were not to seize the moment and announce the elimination of the visa requirement for Mexican citizens introduced in 2009.
Despite the pleas of Canada’s business leaders, Harper never intended use this week’s trip to Mexico to peel back a measure put in place at a time when more Mexicans were filing asylum or refugee claims than citizens of any other nation – many of them proving to be bogus.
Since then, however, Canada has designated Mexico a “safe country of origin,” making refugee claims less likely to succeed.
The downside of the measure has been a 45-percent drop in Mexican tourism to Canada and a distinct souring of the previously solid bilateral relationship.
While Harper never referred to the visa controversy during his two-day visit, Peña Nieto diplomatically thanked Harper for his “willingness to continue a dialogue” and expressed the hope that the visa requirement will be scrapped in the near future.
Privately, some senior Mexican officials were seething, having assumed Harper would at least use the opportunity to make some kind of peace offering, or at least promise to streamline the rather clunky visa application process.
The visa controversy rather overshadowed the rest of the day’s highlights, which included the signing of an agreement to expand air travel between the two countries. While good news for Canadian visitors to Mexico, who will benefit from more direct flights here, the enlarged route access is arguably less beneficial to Mexican airlines who will surely wonder whether branching out into new northern markets makes much financial sense if the visa requirement for Mexican travelers is still in place.
Harper also brought up another less controversial theme – the trade imbalance between the two nations. According to the Prime Minister’s Office, Canada annually imports 25.5 billion dollars’ worth of goods from Mexico while Canada’s total of exports to Mexico is about 5.4 billion. Much more needs to be done to address this deficit, he said.
However, the two presidents were keen to play up the significance of 2014: the 70th anniversary of the signing of diplomatic relations between Mexico and Canada, and the 20th anniversary of the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Peña Nieto pointed out that Canada is now Mexico’s third biggest trade partner and that more than 3,300 Canadian businesses operate in Mexico. This country also receives 1.5 million Canadian visitors each year, he added.