Bush seeks to cement ties with Canada, Mexico

WASHINGTON – President Bush is tending to his country’s relationship with Canada and Mexico one last time, trumpeting trade over the “scare tactics” of economic isolation.

Bush joins Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon today in New Orleans for his fourth and final North American Leaders’ Summit.

Despite its lofty name, the two-day summit lacks a defining issue and is not expected to yield any major announcements. It is more like a progress report on how the three countries are integrating – important for commerce and security, but not exactly enticing.

The United States and its two neighbors already have the largest free-trade zone in the world, and an economic relationship that has swelled to nearly $1 trillion a year.

To bolster that cooperation, the countries have made a concerted effort to harmonize standards on everything from food safety to baggage screening to energy efficiency. Bush and his counterparts championed this effort three years ago and keep refining it.

In New Orleans, the leaders will push anew to streamline the rules for all three countries. The areas of focus this time include fuel efficiency standards; crackdowns against counterfeit or pirated goods; long-term plans for repairing roads and bridges; responses to natural disasters and other emergencies near the borders; and coordination on recalls of unsafe products.

“The progress tends to be incremental, and therefore is not widely understood,” said Peter DeShazo, a top State Department official for Western Hemisphere affairs during Bush’s first term. “But in the big picture, there’s a more coherent relationship.”

The three leaders rarely get into the weedy details. But their presence sends a message that cooperation is vital, said DeShazo, who directs the Americas Program for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.