THIS SUNDAY on Dialogue at the Wilson Center

America’s Borders North & South

Sunday, April 7th, 10:30 am (EST)

This week on Dialogue at the Wilson Center we present a discussion of America’s borders. We begin with a look northward. Our guest is the director of the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute David Biette. We also turn our sights south to the U.S.-Mexico border with Christopher Wilson, an associate with the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute.

Watch live stream here.

TV Broadcast: Washington, DC and national.

On immigration, should America be more like Canada?

Photo by Flickr user I.A.M.

Fortune, 4/3/2013

Throughout history, first-generation Americans have had a solid track record of starting some of the biggest U.S. companies. To name a few: Intel, Google, and eBay. Now as debates over U.S. immigration policy reform continue, it’s worth asking if the U.S should take Canada’s lead. On Monday, our northern neighbor launched a new visa program designed to lure the best and the brightest entrepreneurs from around the world. It’s similar to other start-up visas that have recently been created or revamped in places like Australia, Chile, and the U.K. The big difference is that unlike most countries that make participants wait a few years to see how many jobs their startups create, Canada’s new visa grants permanent residency from the start.

Coincidentally, the launch came the same day the U.S. kicked off application season for skilled-foreign worker visas. Unlike previous years since the financial crisis, petitions for H-1B visas have risen sharply. It’s a sign of an improving economy but also a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit of talented foreigners hungry to live and work in the U.S.

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Director Duncan Wood Testifies Before Congress

On March 14, 2013, Duncan Wood, Director of the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute, testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. The hearing, titled “U.S. Energy Security: Enhancing Partnerships with Mexico and Canada,” included a discussion of the Keystone XL pipeline and the Transboundary Hydrocarbons Agreement.

To watch the archive hearing video, click HERE.

The full text of his statement is available HERE.

HEARING: U.S. Energy Security: Enhancing Partnerships with Mexico and Canada

Duncan Wood, Director of the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute, testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. The hearing, titled “U.S. Energy Security: Enhancing Partnerships with Mexico and Canada,” included a discussion of the Keystone XL pipeline and the Transboundary Hydrocarbons Agreement.

A video of Wood’s statement is available HERE.

Monarch butterflies drop ominously in Mexico

Associated Press, 3/14/2013

The number of Monarch butterflies making it to their winter refuge in Mexico dropped 59 percent this year, falling to the lowest level since comparable record-keeping began 20 years ago, scientists reported Wednesday. It was the third straight year of declines for the orange-and-black butterflies that migrate from the United States and Canada to spend the winter sheltering in mountaintop fir forests in central Mexico. Six of the last seven years have shown drops, and there are now only one-fifteenth as many butterflies as there were in 1997.

Omar Vidal, the World Wildlife Fund director in Mexico, said: “The conservation of the Monarch butterfly is a shared responsibility between Mexico, the United States and Canada. By protecting the reserves and having practically eliminated large-scale illegal logging, Mexico has done its part. It is now necessary for the United States and Canada to do their part and protect the butterflies’ habitat in their territories.”

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Time to review trade relations with Mexico

San Francisco Chronicle, 3/12/2013

Since Enrique Pena Nieto’s election, the Mexican president has focused on economic growth and fighting poverty. The new Mexican administration should focus on out-competing China and other lower-cost manufacturers. The higher price of fuel has meant that goods from Asia are more expensive to ship, providing a further incentive for North American companies to source products from Mexico.

As we begin the 20th year of the North American Free Trade Agreement among Canada, the United States and Mexico, it is a good time to reflect on the seminal trade pact and how to encourage integration and foster economic growth.

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Report: Trusted Traveler Programs between the U.S., Canada and Mexico

With the support of the Department of Homeland Security, Clare Gallaher and Alexandra Kuschner, both international affairs M.A. students from American University, recently undertook an analysis of U.S. trusted traveler and trusted trader programs. As the debate over immigration reform has brought renewed attention to the issues of border security and border management, the importance of these trusted programs is hard to overstate. On a dollar per dollar basis, investments in expanding the use of trusted traveler and trader programs are likely the cheapest way to make our borders both more secure and more efficient, making an understanding of both their potential and limitations increasingly important. To download a copy of the report, click here: “Is FAST Fast and Other Questions: An Examination of the Trusted Traveler and Trusted Trader Programs Between the United States, Canada, and Mexico.”

 

Event: “Trilateral Border Issue Symposium,” March 18-19, ASU

With border security front and center in national debate, a symposium co-hosted by ASU intends to link that issue to mutual economic security among the United States, Canada and Mexico – the largest trading bloc in the world – and how both issues impact Arizona’s business community. The March 18-19 event is being organized by ASU’s North American Center for Transborder Studies (NACTS) at the university’s Downtown Phoenix campus and the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown Hotel.

“Trilateral Border Issue Symposium” will provide a forum for scholars, practitioners, business organizations and government officials from all three countries to examine and evaluate cross-border trade challenges facing Arizona business owners. By comparing and contrasting a wide range of activities on the U.S. northern and southern borders, participants from places including Mexico City, Ottawa and Washington, D.C., should come away with greater insight into solving border problems both north and south, said Rick Van Schoik, NACTS director.

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With eyes on trade, Canada courts resurgent Mexico

Photo by Flickr user I.A.M.

The Globe and Mail, 2/22/2013

The Harper government has made early efforts to get close to Mexico’s new administration, led by President Enrique Pena Nieto, who took power in December. In another move to improve relations, Canada recently took steps to remove its requirement for Mexican visitors to have visas.

“One of the things we wanted to do was engage very early with the new government,” he said, noting he met with Mr. Pena Nieto in Davos when he was still a presidential candidate, and that as president-elect, Mr. Pena Nieto visited Ottawa. “We’re pleased with where [the relationship] is, but the trajectory is more important.”

“Mexico, in our lifetime, is going to be a top-10 world economy, and potentially in our lifetime, a top-five world economy,” Mr. Baird said in an interview. “It’s tremendously important, not just that we look at it through the trilateral relationship with the United States, but that bilaterally we work with them on security, on jobs, and on values.”

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Fast Track to Jobs Through A North American Energy Market

Forbes, 2/15/2013

America’s sputtering economy and persistently high unemployment are urgent matters.  Does anyone think opening up negotiations with the 27-member European Union (E.U.) will have a near-term impact on either side of the Atlantic?  Meanwhile, there is a fast track to more jobs and wealth through expanded trade with just two countries, our neighbors Canada and Mexico.  But there wasn’t a single mention of Canada in the SOTU speech. Mexico got one brief nod, in the context of Ford returning jobs to America from Mexico.

The President’s E.U. trade proposal has already been widely quoted, meeting quickly with measured bureaucratic approbation in Europe.  Of course any progress towards more open and free trade is a net good for the world.  And as the President noted in his SOTU, America and the  E.U. account for 30% of world trade, and fully half of global GDP resides in these two regions.

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