North America’s Trilateral Summit

By Teri Mattson, WTF is Going on in Latin America and the Caribbean.

January 12, 2023
Podcast – WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean

Host Teri Mattson and guest host Raul Burbano speak with Marco Castillo, Co-Executive Director of Global Exchange, Alina Duarte, journalist with Sin Censura and Jim Hodgson, Canadian Journalist.

The United States, Mexico and Canada on Tuesday, January 10 vowed to tighten economic ties, producing more goods regionally and boosting semiconductor output, even as integration is hampered by an ongoing dispute over Mexico’s energy policies.

U.S. President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met in Mexico City and pledged to beef up supply chains after weathering serious disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re working to a future to strengthen our cooperation on supply chains and critical minerals so we can continue to accelerate in our efforts to build the technologies of tomorrow – right here in North America,” Biden said in a joint news conference with his fellow leaders after their meeting.

Lopez Obrador said the region would promote economic development by creating a committee for import substitution to make North America less dependent on other parts of the world.

The White House said the three countries would improve legal pathways for migrants, and Lopez Obrador again urged Biden to press Congress to enact measures that would regularize the migration status of millions of Mexicans in the United States.

Trudeau portrayed Canada as an original architect and the principal guardian of free trade on the continent as he called for a new era of three-way growth.

And as the world struggles to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and its sweeping, residual economic effects, he called on would-be investors to take a leap of faith similar to the one the NAFTA pioneers did in the early 1990s.