Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and President Joseph R. Biden met in Mexico City for the tenth North American Leaders’ Summit (NALS). The leaders are determined to fortify our region’s security, prosperity, sustainability and inclusiveness through commitments across six pillars: 1) diversity, equity, and inclusion; 2) climate change and the environment; 3) competitiveness; 4) migration and development; 5) health; and 6) regional security.
North America shares a unique history and culture that emphasizes innovation, equitable development, and mutually beneficial trade to create inclusive economic opportunities for the benefit of our people. We are not just neighbours and partners. Our people share bonds of family and friendship and value - above all else - freedom, justice, human rights, equality, and democracy. This is the North American DNA.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Diversity, equity, and inclusion is foundational to the strength, vibrancy, and resilience of our countries. We focus on providing marginalized communities opportunities for their full, equal, and meaningful participation in our democracies and economies. To advance these objectives, Prime Minister Trudeau, President López Obrador and President Biden reiterated their joint commitment to protect civil rights, promote racial justice, expand protections for LGBTQI+ individuals and deliver more equitable outcomes to all.
In partnership with Indigenous Peoples, we will promote innovative and sustainable solutions that honor traditional knowledge, foster Indigenous-led growth and drive job creation. We will continue our cooperation to build societies where Indigenous women and girls can live, learn, and lead without fear through the Trilateral Working Group on Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls. Indigenous women from all three countries will convene in the coming weeks to facilitate discussions about priorities and best practices including in areas of political, economic, and social development. The three countries also reaffirm our commitment to gender equality and empowerment of women and girls, in all their diversity by aiming to improve financial and political support for women’s and girl’s rights.
Climate Change and Environment
Canada, Mexico and the United States recognize the critical nature of taking rapid and coordinated measures to tackle the climate crisis and respond to its consequences. This includes achieving our respective 2030 nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement, and working together and with other countries to keep a 1.5-degree C temperature limit within reach. To promote buy-in for ambitious cuts to emissions, we will come together to align approaches on estimating the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions.
We will continue to implement and build on commitments from the 2021 North American Leaders’ Summit on climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience, while renewing our focus on reducing methane emissions from all sources, with a new focus on waste methane. We will explore standards to develop hydrogen as a regional source of clean energy. We will move swiftly to accelerate the energy transition by deploying clean energy solutions, increasing the production and adoption of zero-emission vehicles in North America and transitioning to cleaner fuels. In partnership with Indigenous Peoples, we reiterate our pledge to protect biodiversity, to work toward ending deforestation, and doing our part to conserve 30 percent of the world’s land and waters by 2030.
Competitiveness
We seek to deepen our regional capacity to attract high quality investment, spur innovation, and strengthen the resilience of our economies, recognizing the benefits brought by the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). To boost regional competitiveness, the three countries will seek to forge stronger regional supply chains, as well as promote targeted investment, in key industries of the future such as semiconductors and electric vehicle batteries, which will be critical to advance electric vehicle development and infrastructure. We will convene public-private dialogues and map out supply chains to address common challenges and opportunities.
Critical minerals are an essential component to accelerating North America’s clean energy transition. Each country will review and map out existing and potential reserves of critical mineral resources in the region, while taking care of the environment, respecting local communities, and adhering to high ethical standards.
To support innovation, job creation, and workforce development, the three governments commit to working with the private sector, civil society, labor and academia across North America to foster high-tech entrepreneurship, promote small and medium-sized enterprises, and strengthen technical education. We will also consider trilateral approaches to promote sustainable, inclusive jobs and develop the workforce to meet our climate commitments.
Migration and Development
Today marks the six-month anniversary of the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, a bold new framework for regional responsibility-sharing that 21 leaders endorsed on the margins of the ninth Summit of the Americas. The three countries of North America each made ambitious commitments under the Los Angeles Declaration, particularly regarding regular pathways, including working together to advance labour mobility in North America and have been delivering on these commitments.
Since June, Canada, Mexico and the United States have collectively welcomed record numbers of migrants and refugees from the Western Hemisphere under new and expanded labour and humanitarian programs. Today, we affirm our joint commitment to safe, orderly, and humane migration under the Los Angeles Declaration and other relevant multilateral frameworks. This includes assisting host communities and promoting migrant and refugee integration; providing protection to refugees, asylum seekers, and vulnerable migrants; strengthening asylum capacity in the region; expanding and promoting regular pathways for migration and protection; addressing the root causes and impacts of irregular migration and forced displacement; and collaborating to counter xenophobia and discrimination against migrants and refugees.
Now more than ever, we need to identify and address the root causes of irregular migration and forced displacement. Canada, Mexico and the United States commit to supporting countries across the Western Hemisphere to create the conditions to improve quality of life, especially in marginalized communities that are vulnerable to both forced internal and regional migration and displacement. To that end, we will continue to work together and with our respective private sectors to promote responsible business practices, implement obligations under CUSMA and international labour conventions, and cooperate to eradicate the use of forced and child labour in our supply chains.
Health
Trilateral health cooperation will focus on launching an updated North American Plan for Animal and Pandemic Influenza (NAPAPI) to improve prevention, preparedness, agility, and to provide rapid response to health emergencies in North America. The North American Health Security Working Group will develop and launch a new, revised NAPAPI as a flexible, scalable, and cross-sectoral platform to strengthen regional prevention, preparedness and response to a broader range of health security threats that include influenza and beyond. As we emerge from the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, we also recognize that resilient health systems, including a strong health workforce, are the foundation upon which effective pandemic preparedness and response will be built. We will continue efforts to build stronger and more resilient health systems that meet the broad range of health needs in our countries.
Regional Security
Canada, Mexico and the United States will focus on strategies to bolster our shared continental security against domestic, regional, and global threats, including cyber threats. Security cooperation will continue to abide by our common understanding that respect for human rights and the rule of law contribute to a more secure North America. Our security cooperation includes actions to disrupt criminal actors and associated crimes across our shared borders, including money laundering, child sexual exploitation, firearms and human trafficking. We also are taking a consistent approach to the collection, use, processing, retention, and protection of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data to strengthen our shared security perimeter and the safety of our citizens, including advocating for the global adoption of standards and recommended practices of the International Civil Aviation Organization on PNR data.
We will continue our North American Drug Dialogue and further advance our cooperative international efforts to address the growing global synthetic drug threat as the United States takes the chair in 2023. We will enhance trilateral work to address the use of precursor chemicals in the production of illegal substances in North America and to disrupt drug trafficking, as well as strengthen public health approaches to prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery.
As both natural and human-induced hazards and disasters increase risks to vulnerable populations, we will continue to work together to share training and best practices to keep our people safe and address emergencies including natural and other disasters. Recognizing the differentiated impact disasters have on women and girls, we aim to integrate a gender perspective in these efforts.
Looking forward
The commitments made during this summit are rooted in a shared vision for a more equitable, just, inclusive, resilient, secure, and prosperous North America and a shared responsibility to achieve more equitable outcomes responsive to the needs and aspirations of our citizens. As we work to implement these commitments in the upcoming year, we seek to model a democratic and sustainable path based on trust to promote inclusive prosperity and security. Canada, Mexico and the United States look forward to building on this progress at the 11th NALS (NALS XI), to be hosted by Canada.