The US President George Bush hosted the Tri-Nation Summit at New Orleans, claiming the city has bounced back from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina three years ago and had become a ‘hopeful’ city which was capable of staging big events. Alongside Bush, the Mexican President Felipe Calderon and the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper defended their 14-year-old free trade agreement amid criticism in the US presidential campaign that the pact displaced Americans from their jobs.
Calderon argued, NAFTA was not all bad, but the critics of the deal did not realize, how many jobs had been created, and pointed out a drastic fall in immigration from Mexico as a result of the treaty. While pre-NAFTA period taken into account and considering the present head count on American jobs, Calderon’s argument has to be validated to a certain extent, analysts opined.
Canada being the largest trade partner and Mexico being the third largest partner of the United States of America, the trade between the three countries has reached $930 billion in last year and is estimated to reach a whooping $1 trillion by the end of this year. Bush praised both the nations’ for their contribution in cross-border trade and further remarked, when he and Calderon were growing up, the borders were very poor and now it was prosperous. Likewise, Calderon stated, the NAFTA was largely misunderstood, and in fact, has boosted the dependent economies by removing trade barriers.
Even though the summit focused on the current demands of NAFTA, Bush expects to translate the outcome of the summit to get approval by the Congress on other pending trade deals with Panama, South Korea and Columbia. The recent aborted attempt to get ratification on Columbian Trade Agreement by the Bush administration in the Congress, has spurred Bush to make a harsh call to shed ‘petty politics’. Analysts forecast, Bush entering the fag end of his term, would not make a farce out of the summit and see it was successful.