Climate change, protectionism to be on table for Three Amigos North American leaders to convene for two-day, trilateral summit

Sheldon Alberts, July 15, 2009, Canwest News Service-- Mexican President Felipe Calderon is preparing to host Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama for a North American leaders' meeting in early August -- reviving a tradition of trilateral summits established during the latter years of the Bush administration.

Issues surrounding climate change and mounting Canadian and Mexican anxiety over U.S. protectionism are expected to dominate the two-day summit, which sources say is tentatively scheduled for around Aug. 9 and10 in Guadalajara, the capital of Mexico's Jalisco state.

The White House has yet to confirm Obama's travel schedule, but the meeting has been listed on a U.S. State Department planning calendar and Harper's office said Tuesday it appears the summit is a go.

"My understanding it is proceeding," Harper spokesman Kory Teneycke said Tuesday when asked about the meeting. "I know we have it in our draft travel itinerary."

A U.S. government official said the "actual dates may not be set inconcrete."

But in preparation for the meeting in Mexico, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has invited Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary Patricia Espinosa to Washington on Thursday to discuss issues ranging from continental energy supply to cooperation indealing with the swine flu virus.

The August summit offers the first concrete evidence Obama remains committed to continuing the annual meeting of North American leaders,which was first held in 2005 when former president George W. Bush hosted then prime minister Paul Martin and Mexican president Vicente Fox at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Bush also hosted the most recent summit in New Orleans in April 2008.

The focal point in past summits was always the Security and Prosperity Partnership, a White House-driven initiative to increase intelligence sharing, cooperation on counterterrorism programs and border security between the three countries.

But the partnership's agenda -- which activists on the political left criticized as secretive and undemocratic -- has effectively been pushed to the background since Obama took office in January.

Instead, Obama has placed global warming and economic stimulus at the top of his priority list in early dealings with both Harper and Calderon.

The North American leaders' meeting will also give Harper some much-needed face time with Obama -- the two men did not hold a bilateral meeting at the recent G8 summit in Italy -- to seek relief from contentious Buy American provisions that essentially ban Canadian companies from procurement contracts tied to the $787-billion US stimulus package.

Cannon will press Ottawa's case against protectionism in advance when he meets in Washington on Thursday with Clinton, a senior Canadian official told Canwest News Service.

"Canada will continue to voice its concerns with Buy American provisions-- ask for flexibility and to keep markets open and free and to reject protectionism," the official said.

Because the Three Amigos summits began during the Bush era, there had been some speculation over whether they would remain a priority for Obama, who has an already-full calendar comprised of foreign travel and international summits.

For example, Harper, Obama and Calderon will see each other yet again in September at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh.