Leaders from 16 Asian countries — including Australia, China, India, Japan, and South Korea — met in Tokyo on Sunday to continue working towards the creation of the world’s largest trading bloc, one that would constitute one third of the world’s population and potentially allow for “free movement” of labor between member states.
“The path toward a year-end agreement is now clearer,” said Hiroshige Seko, Japan’s Trade Minister during the joint-press conference held Sunday. “As protectionism concerns increase globally, it’s important that the Asian region flies the flag of free trade.”
If ever fully achieved, the partnership would also include the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as well as South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, and cover one third of the world’s economy and almost half its population.
For most of the world, regional integration and economic cooperation is nothing new. South America has MERCOSUR, Southeast Asia has ASEAN, Russia and some former Soviet states have the Eurasian Economic Union, and, of course, Europe has the European Union, arguably the most advanced project of regional integration.
At the same time as other parts of the world are pursuing economic and political integration, however, the United States is increasingly looking inward: expressing ambivalence about NAFTA and clinging to outdated notions of sovereignty and nationalism.
Given its rapidly declining relative economic and military power even before the horror of the Trump regime, the need for the United States to have serious “adult” conversations about giving up some sovereignty for greater global influence as part of a regional bloc has existed for some time.
These conversations won’t be easy, because even liberals like Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama engage in a profoundly problematic discourse of extreme nationalism: “America is the greatest country on Earth.”
But these conversations are nevertheless necessary, because absent robust regional integration with Canada and Mexico, the United States will be choosing irrelevance. Adjusted for purchasing power parity, our GDP already trails China and the European Union. Our population is stagnating.
So, what would a North American Union look like? Well, probably something like the European Union, but with the advantage that we can learn from Europe’s process of integration.
To start, we would form a “single market” between the Untied States, Canada and Mexico — all tariffs would be eliminated and North America would speak as a “single voice” when negotiating trade agreements with other blocs and/or countries. The United States wouldn’t negotiate trade agreements with Russia or the European Union — instead, North America would negotiate trade agreements with other international actors.
To start, the United States and Canada would probably become a “border-free” zone — for both free movement of people and labor — similar to Europe’s Schengen Area, with Mexico wrapped into this zone in due course. (Even before being wrapped into a borderless North America, however, Mexicans would immediately enjoy a privileged status as migrants in the United States and Canada.)
Ultimately, far in the future, the North American Union might become something close to — but just short of — a federal North American state, perhaps with governing institutions in a politically neutral city like Toronto, Canada or Monterrey, Mexico.
As the Union evolves, additional countries from the Caribbean and Central America could apply for membership, upon meeting high standards of governance, human rights, and a commitment to open and free markets.
Cooperation on everything from defense to international development to regulatory standards would also increasingly fall under a North American framework. A shared currency would eventually be implemented.
As a compromise for those on the right who would inevitably be concerned about loss of sovereignty and increased migration to the United States, participation in a new North American Union would necessarily mean the construction of a new kind of North American sovereignty with North American borders, ones that would be strong and controlled. Even as migration increases from our historic neighbors of Mexico and Canada, migration from other large countries — China and India, for example — could be expected to decrease and come under additional scrutiny. Such would be a small price to pay for the United States moving beyond nationalism into an exciting globalized and multilateral 21st Century.
Will this project be easy? No. Is it necessary? Yes.
The future is multilateralism and regional cooperation — we ignore it to our peril.