Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, in his mid-February tour of Latin American countries, succinctly explained Canada’s strategic interest in a more economically integrated partnership of the Three Amigos in the NAFTA free-trade agreement — and most urgently with Mexico, the poorest of them all.
“Mexico, in our lifetime, is going to be a Top-10 world economy,” Mr. Baird said. “Potentially, it will be a Top-Five world economy.
“It’s tremendously important that we look at Mexico through our trilateral relationship with the United States but bilaterally, too, on security, on jobs and on values.”
The Three Amigo numbers speak just as succinctly — in demographic terms, in economic terms, in social terms. But many Canadians employ stereotypical assumptions to keep Mexico in its presumed place. In an editorial last year, The Globe and Mail resisted: “Mexicans are not southern trash.” The newspaper noted that the UN Human Development Index, which measures standards of living, ranks Mexico comparably with Canada, Britain and the United States.
Population
U.S. population now: 315 million; U.S. population projected to 2050, 440 million.
Canada population now: 35 million; Canada population projected to 2050, 40 million.
Mexico population now: 110 million; Mexico population projected to 2050, 150 million.
From a population base of 460 million now, in other words, “America” could become a continental trade alliance with a combined population of more than 630 million.
Gross Domestic Product
Goldman Sachs has predicted Mexico will become one of the world’s five biggest economies by 2050 with GDP of US$9.3 trillion — a four-fold expansion of GDP per capita. The investment firm predicts that Canada will grow at a much slower pace: a doubling of GDP, rising from $1.4 trillion to $3 trillion. With $3 trillion GDP, Canada would marginally exceed the Philippines. Taken together, the NAFTA economy would exceed $50 trillion, an economy exceeded only by China (GDP: $70 trillion in 2050).