What is the role of government? A Republican political nation-state is based on a constitution with popular suffrage guaranteed through an electoral process. Within this broad definition lies a nation's greatest strength, protection, and weakness. The role of government must be perpetually debated so that each generation can address the most pressing questions of its time. We cannot rely on the past for exact answers but for guidance in understanding where we came from and what we believe in, so that we can best address our present and prepare for our future. Currently the present is in crisis and most Estadounidenses claim to be worried for our posterity.

Ideally, the North American Leaders Summit, recently concluded in Guadalajara, and the upcoming Border Governors Conference in Monterrey this week are but complementary halves (or, more accurately, quarters) of a “whole of government” solution to North American issues: the Summit envisions and sets a top-level priority list and Conference implements specific, local and customized solutions to a number of challenges.

Local Solutions are Often Better Solutions

Embassy Magazine: The SPP's Death Knell has Sounded

Rick Van Schoik and a number of NACTS partners are quoted in an extensive article on the demise of the Security and Prosperity Partnership in  Embassy, Canada's foreign policy magazine.

Two articles from last week on our neighbors' diverging economic situations:

Hermosillo's El Imparcial reported that this could be Mexico's worst recession since the Great Depression, while The Globe and Mail reports that employment is looking up in Canada while U.S. employment numbers continue to look bad.

And then a very interesting article in yesterday's New York Times about Mexico's shift on drug policy.

The NACTS Blog will be providing a weekly posting of current news articles related to our mission as they become available.

The New York Times:
A Battle as the Tide Takes Away Cancún Sand

The Los Angeles Times:
Mexico bars fugitive lawmaker-elect Julio Cesar Godoy

The Washington Post:
A Test of Faith in Mexico's Drug War

Two weeks ago I participated in various panels at a history conference in Albuquerque, NM. It was an excellent conference that usually draws a diverse academic population from throughout the West.

The best part of this conference is the breadth of panel topics. For the purposes of today's post I will comment on my experience at two different panels. The first was my panel, which dealt with US/Latin American relations in the 21st century. My presentation assessed the place of Mexican immigration within the evolution of the contemporary Mexican and United States nation-states. But for today's purposes I am commenting on the paper given by one of my fellow panelists.

We’re All North Americans, Now More Than Ever
by Rick Van Schoik, Director

What an ideal time for President Obama to go to Mexico to meet with the other two North American leaders! The U.S. public and Congress are in a protectionist funk, yet the President can and must continue to explore how the United States can effectively benefit from our interactions with all nations, particularly our immediate neighbors. He can join his fellow leaders to the north and south to show us here at home and to our friends and enemies around the world what it means to be neighborly.  He can in fact convince us “homeland-centric” Americans that we are North Americans.

President Obama's trip to Canada last week was reported on extensively by a number of news outlets. Read the Associated Press' coverage here. Americans and Mexicans might have missed the CBC's interview of President Obama, but we were struck by one particular set of ideas on approaching climate change from a trilateral perspective:

“North America Next: A Report to President Obama on Building Sustainable Security and Competitiveness" was released on Tuesday, Feb. 10 by the North American Center for Transborder Studies (NACTS) at Arizona State University at an official “Newsmaker" event hosted by the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The report represents more than a year of consultations by NACTS' consortium of leading experts and universities in the three countries and covers major tri-national challenges including border security, trade, energy, labor/migration, transportation and infrastructure and environmental protection.

The report was presented at the Newsmakers event by NACTS Director Rick Van Schoik, with commentary provided by Roberta Jacobson, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Canada, Mexico and NAFTA; Mexican Embassy Head of Economic Affairs Antonio Ortiz Mena; and Colin Robertson, a senior Canadian diplomat currently directing the Canada-US project at Carleton University in Ottawa.