The leaders of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico met in Ottawa on Wednesday for the first North American Leaders' Summit, or Three Amigos, in more than two years. Here are some of the agreements that came out of the meeting.
On fighting crime
• The governments have agreed to semi-annual meetings to talk about drugs. The U.S. will host the first North American Drug Policy Dialogue in October.
• Canada is also promising to review its federal procurement guidelines and policies to see if they're vulnerable to abuse by human traffickers. A spokesman for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau couldn't immediately explain how they might be vulnerable.
• Canada, the U.S. and Mexico also committed to a 90-day pilot project by the end of 2016 that will "target foreign fugitives with known or suspected ties to North America." The idea is to ID, locate and "take appropriate follow-up enforcement actions" (presumably arrest them). We'll get the results of the project in 2017.
On trade
• Canada, Mexico and the U.S. confirmed agreement on a series of changes to ease restrictions on products worth $166 billion in trade between them. They're liberalizing NAFTA rules of origin for products including pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, rubber, metals, industrial and electrical machinery, precision instruments and natural gas.
• The leaders also agreed steel-producing countries need to address excess capacity, including curtailing subsidies and other supports that increase it. They set up a trilateral customs steel enforcement dialogue to co-ordinate compliance efforts and share information about anti-dumping and countervailing.
• The three countries have launched the North American Competitiveness Work Plan. They describe the plan as 14 initiatives to reduce costs for business, improve supply chains and advance innovation. The U.S. will host the first Stakeholder Dialogue on North American Competitiveness this fall.
• The three countries also want to identify and map clusters of companies, suppliers and institutions in the same sectors to give them a better understanding of a region's economic strengths. Canada will develop a national cluster mapping portal.
On security and defence
• The defence ministers of North America are establishing a peacekeeping working group to "identify and advance areas of co-operation and synergies." And Canada, Mexico and the U.S. "are deeply preoccupied by the decision to rerun presidential elections in Haiti." They are concerned that Haitians "be governed by democratically elected leaders."
On speeding up border crossings
• By the end of this year, Canadians and Americans who are part of NEXUS can apply to Mexico's Viajero Confiable Program, which would give them expedited immigration screening at some airports in Mexico. Mexicans already part of Viajero will also be able to apply to NEXUS.
• The three countries aim to align their border processing for businesses and promise a joint study "to determine if trilateral alignment is possible."