OBAMA’S HUGE FAILURE IN SNUBBING THE KEYSTONE PIPELINE
http://online.wsj.com/articles/home-team-advantage-1412900487
Among the lengthening list of foreign-policy issues that President Obama has botched or ignored, none is more inexcusable than failing to exploit the bursting economic potential of the United States, Canada and Mexico.
The U.S. and Canada are in the midst of an historic boom of energy discovery and production. Mexico is on the cusp of exploiting its own vast energy resources. Unless the laws of economics have been repealed, the benefits of deepening the integration of these three neighboring economies in new jobs and per-capita wealth would be enormous. What’s missing is the political leadership necessary to start assembling one of the world’s most powerful economic regions.
That’s not entirely fair. There is indeed active political leadership—in Canada. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has decided he can’t wait for an American President who is still giving speeches about building his new economy around solar panels and windmill farms.
In September Mr. Harper visited London to ballyhoo the trade agreement completed between Canada and the European Union. Most notable, and disconcerting, was a remark Mr. Harper made there about the United States: “We know that the United States is unlikely to be a fast-growing economy for many years to come,” Mr. Harper said. “We’re in a globalized economy,” he added, noting it’s imperative to get Canada’s businesses into the global supply chain.
Ouch.
This isn’t just talk. In recent weeks, news has emerged that the Canadians have found a startling alternative to the Obama Keystone XL pipeline refusal: They are going to build a pipeline from the oil sands in Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Saint John, New Brunswick, on the Atlantic Ocean.
The Energy East project will allow the Canadians to ship oil to Europe and points east. A Bloomberg News report says the Canadians are already lining up customers in India. Energy East hopes to be finished in 2018.
Good for Canadians. But we never thought we’d see the day that they’d steal a march on America’s entrepreneurs.
Future U.S. leadership can get us back in the game. A recent report by a task force for the Council on Foreign Relations—“North America: Time for a New Focus”—describes the elements of a North American economic union for the three nations’ 500 million people. It has been 22 years since the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed by President George H.W. Bush, completing negotiations begun in the Reagan Presidency. Despite Nafta’s shortcomings, regional trade grew to $1.1 trillion by 2013.
In a violent, disordered world, the disagreements among the U.S., Canada and Mexico are minor. The benefits of uniting the economies of these three huge, peaceful nations are real. But it will require a U.S. presidential candidate with some of Prime Minister Harper’s vision to make it happen.
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