A year ago, the North American Center for Transborder Studies (NACTS), a trinational consortium of universities, was asked by our trinational Board of Advisors to create a roadmap for the new U.S. administration in working with Canada and Mexico, our neighbors and most important trading partners. In doing so, a number of key opportunities repeatedly came to the forefront of this extended conversation, particularly those listed above. We believe that the U.S. relationship with Canada and Mexico should be driven by these concepts. We also believe that these concepts are highly compatible with the Obama Administration’s vision of the future of North America. “North America Next: A Report to President Obama on Building Sustainable Security and Competitiveness” is a unique effort by NACTS, which is strategically located in a fast-growing border state; at the nexus of major immigration fl ows to the United States; along a key corridor of cross-border commerce; and at a large, highaccess public university. The border regions of North America have a long—though mixed—history of cooperation across national boundaries. As the Obama Administration looks at rearticulating U.S. policies in the Americas, we strongly believe that regional organizations are critical assets in building a relationship with our neighbors that is more secure and prosperous. Furthermore, we believe that when policy relating to Canada and Mexico are viewed from a multi-functional framework that looks at the highly interconnected issues of security, competitiveness, and sustainability in North America, citizens of all three countries will clearly be better off.NACTS shaped the recommendations in this report for building a more collaborative North America from an ongoing series of engagements (events, meetings, working papers, etc.) with a large number of Canadian, U.S. and Mexican experts and organizations. This process of engagement with NACTS’ trinational Board of advisors and a large number of diverse institutions and individuals of various political persuasions in the United States, Mexico and Canada was extremely enlightening and helped shape this document’s scope and detail.
