Three Amigos Summit: What Trudeau, Nieto, Obama agreed on in Ottawa

North American Leaders’ Summit focused on many issues – clean energy and climate change, stronger trade, border issues, economic competitiveness, human rights, security and immigration.

Ultimately, the Three Amigos wrapped up their day-long summit meeting Wednesday by presenting a united front against the global forces of protectionism.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. President Barack Obama and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto all said it would be a mistake for the continent to shut itself off from an integrated global economy.

But Obama in particular noted that free trade also needs to be fair trade, and countries need to take steps to ensure that prosperity continues to flow to all of their citizens.

Trudeau said it’s one of the key themes of the North American Leaders’ Summit, to highlight how trade and international agreements are good for global economy and for people around the world.

He said countries that export more of their goods to markets around the world are wealthier, and citizens are able to share in that growth.

Obama said it’s too late to try to prevent the integration of national economies into a single global entity, because it has already happened.

“The question is not whether or not there’s going to be an international, global economy — there is one,” the president said. “Under what terms are we going to shape that economy?”

Earlier Wednesday, Pena Nieto offered a sharp rebuke of the protectionist forces north of his country’s border and in Britain.

His anti-isolationism message came one day after he and Trudeau trumpeted their bilateral relationship as a model of political and economic co-operation.

They presented the Canada-Mexico relationship as a sharp contrast to the growing strains of protectionism and isolation sweeping the United States and Britain, with its referendum decision to leave the European Union — a theme the Mexican leader placed squarely on the agenda of the summit.

North America accounts for about 20 per cent of global emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that the Pembina Institute estimates accounts for a fifth of all man-made global warming to date.

The trio will also announce plans to achieve 50 per cent clean power generation across North America by 2025, including renewable energy, nuclear power, carbon capture and storage and increased energy efficiency.

Canada has over 80 per cent clean electricity generation, by that measure — North America as a whole is at 37 per cent — meaning the plan could put Canada in a lucrative position to export more power to the U.S.

On Tuesday, Trudeau and Pena Nieto cleared away long-standing trade and travel irritants: Canada will lift its controversial visa requirement for Mexican visitors before the end of the year while Mexico will end restrictions on Canadian beef imports.

The visit to the national capital was capped with Obama’s address to Parliament.

Sources: CTV News, cbc.ca

~Wakenya Canada