Mexico-Canada: for a bilateral relationship 

The Mexico-Canada relationship has been defined, from its origins, by its relationship with the United States. When one compares Octavio Paz's essay on Mexico and the United States, in his book Tiempo Nublado, with Canadian professor Seymour Lipset's book, Continental Divide, the similarities in the attitudes of Mexico and Canada toward the United States are evident. For his part, the Canadian writer Robertson Davies referred to Mexico and Canada as the parenthesis that contained the United States. Undoubtedly, the weight of gravity that the United States exerts on Mexico and Canada explains the bilateral relationship between the latter. This mechanism can be seen in the Mexico-United States-Canada trade relationship.

The negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) began in 1990 as a treaty between Mexico and the United States. Its trilateral nature is the product of Canada’s fear that the United States would decide to sign a network of bilateral treaties that would undermine the conditions of the treaty that they had signed with Ronald Reagan at the beginning of 1988. To illustrate this scenario, the Canadians used the term "hub and spoke”, which referred to the structure of airports where, from a single point, several boarding terminals detach. Canadian professor Maxwell Cameron put it this way: “If the United States subsequently concludes separate treaties with other countries, Canada will not gain any benefit from future agreements and will, in fact, lose, as the United States will become more competitive for preferential access to other markets and lower cost imports. The United States would therefore become more competitive internationally and would be able to increase its dominance over the continent as the center of this expansive trade regime..."

For this reason, Canada raised its hand and requested to enter into negotiation to build, with NAFTA, a regional treaty. This decision was very fortunate for Mexico because it allowed it, little by little, to build a very constructive synergy with Canada, which has lasted to this day, and which has allowed the two countries to identify and defend common interests against the United States.

President Donald Trump has tried to break NAFTA and return to bilateral trade agreements because of his dislike for regional and global treaties that establish dispute resolution mechanisms that force the United States to cede sovereignty. As Mexico and Canada are inclined towards multilateralism and mistrust their common neighbor, they negotiated the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (T-MEC) to defend the regional integration approach and prevent Trump, dividing them, from getting the best of it.

Although the commercial relationship with the United States has facilitated a more intense relationship between Mexico and Canada, the biggest challenge is to overcome the gravitational force exerted by the former to develop a more independent and enriching bilateral relationship. We must overcome the vision that the Mexico-Canada relationship is residual, which means, that it feeds on what remains after covering the needs of its relationship with the United States. Entrepreneurs, the media, academics, and other sectors of Mexico and Canada, first satiate the hunger of the United States than of another country.

Sandra Fuentes-Berain, Mexico's ambassador to Canada between 1993 and 1998, and founder of the modern Mexico-Canada relationship, predicted in 1997 that the bilateral “alliance” should incorporate two elements: continuity and consistency. She is still right. We are still a long way from taking full advantage of what two such similar and naturally united societies can offer each other. Much progress has been made in the Mexico-Canada relationship since 1990, when NAFTA forced us to look each other in the eye. At the time, there was very little to justify a trade agreement between Mexico and Canada, but the United States was the catalyst. However, the challenge remains the same: to generate a critical mass of interests and benefits that is broad and deep enough for the relationship between Mexico and Canada to acquire a dynamic that can overcome the influence of its relationship with the United States. Building a solid bridge that links the two nations, without intermediaries, without going through the United States, continues to be the unfinished project that Fuentes-Berain proposed.