U.S. President Barack Obama Wednesday joined the growing fraternity of admirers of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, praising his package of reforms that he said “promise to make Mexico more competitive and increase opportunity for its people.”
Obama met with Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Toluca at the daylong North American leaders’ summit, but spent less than nine hours in Mexico, deciding to fly in and out on the same day.
Although trade and security headed the agenda, Obama said he looked forward to hearing more about Peña Nieto’s reforms in the criminal justice system.
The summit took place just one month after the 20th anniversary of the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, amid calls from some sectors for a radical overhaul or retooling of the trilateral trade treaty.Rather than renegotiate NAFTA, the consensus among the three leaders is that the two-decade-old trade treaty needs no more than an “upgrade.”
They also agree that a successful negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with the fast-growing Asia-Pacific region would offset the need to make significant changes to NAFTA. This proposed trade agreement, which is currently encased in somewhat secretive negotiations, involves 12 nations – Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam – and, says Obama, seeks to “set new standards for global trade” while promoting innovation, economic growth and development and the creation and retention of jobs.
But while support for the TPP in Mexico is virtually guaranteed, Obama faces a much harder fight for approval from his own Democratic Party, traditionally suspicious of trade deals that could undermine jobs at home.
In a meeting between Obama and Harper, journalists raised the inevitable question over the future of the Keystone XL pipeline project that would move Alberta oil sands crude to U.S. refineries.
Harper sees the project as essential to both countries’ interests and dismisses the concerns of environmentalists. Although courteous in public, it is clear he is frustrated at Obama’s reluctance to take the reins and move the project forward. Having expressed concerns that the pipeline may contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. president seems happy for Washington to take all the time it wants over the approval process.
Obama again expressed his commitment to immigration reform that could give some 10 million undocumented citizens legal status in the United States. But while the Democrat-controlled Senate has already approved a deal, House Republicans admit that the chances of a bill being agreed on before November’s mid-term elections are getting dimmer by the minute.
The annual summit was started in 2005 by President George W. Bush to foster greater economic partnerships and cross-border initiatives. However, the Washington Post remarked that Obama seemed distracted on his fifth visit to Mexico, noting that he spent less time here than he did the previous weekend playing three rounds of golf in California.