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 News from Around the Americas | June 2005 
Mexico, U.S., Canada Pledge To Up Security
 Wire services
| | Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal delivers a statement after holding a meeting with his U.S. and Canadian counterparts in Ottawa on Monday. (Photo: AP) |
Toronto Canada - Mexico and the United States pledged Monday to further shore up security to protect North Americans from terrorism, while expanding on the world's largest trading partnership by facilitating the flow of people and goods across their borders.
"We are three countries, three friends living in the same neighborhood, so we have a common interest in our mutual security and our mutual prosperity," U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a news conference in the federal capital, Ottawa, after he and his Canadian and Mexican counterparts unveiled a list of targets and initiatives.
"We want to confront external threats; we want to prevent and respond to threats to North America and we want to facilitate the flow of traffic across our borders," Chertoff said. "The more secure our region is, the more our prosperity will flourish."
The top trade and industry ministers from the three countries also reported on the progress of the Security and Prosperity Partnership initiative, announced by Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, U.S. President George W. Bush and President Vicente Fox after their March 23 meeting in Waco, Texas.
Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, who is also Canada's minister of public safety, said 300 proposals have been reviewed to ensure security and the free flow of North American trade, prevent threats from potential terrorists and harmonize the screening of dangerous people or cargo.
The 90-page document includes goals to standardize food-safety and pesticide regulations, and efforts to prevent a global flu pandemic. It also calls for a joint emergency response exercise to be conducted before the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
On the economic front, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez and his Mexican and Canadian counterparts, Carlos Abascal and David Emerson, vowed to develop a strategy to combat counterfeiting and piracy by the end of next year; create more regulatory consistency and further integrate their automobile and steel industries. They also agreed to relax rules that will allow for an additional US25 billion worth of duty free goods.
Gutierrez said the United States, Canada and Mexico have a trading relationship worth more than US700 billion a year; an increase of 88 percent between 1993 and 2003.
"So we have a lot of jobs and a lot of prosperity tied to this very important trading relationship," Gutierrez said, adding: "No market economy can thrive without safety and security for its people. The threats we face require seamless cooperation that extends beyond our borders." |
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