Because Talking, Apparently, Still Serves Something
In a plot twist that no one saw coming, in the midst of a world that seems determined to solve everything with shouts and tariffs, former Canadian minister Mary Ng has had the audacity to suggest a radical idea: dialogue. Yes, that old practice that many consider as obsolete as a fax. In the face of geopolitical tensions and external narratives that threaten to turn regional cooperation into a distant memory, Ng called for preserving and strengthening the relationship between the three partners of the Treaty between Mexico, the United States and Mexico (USMCA). What a novel concept.
During her speech at the Global Investors Symposium of the Milken Institute, the official, with a patience that deserves a medal, assured that, despite the challenges, joint work is essential to not throw away the progress achieved in the last three decades. “We have to keep talking to each other. We have to keep working together. We have to keep solving problems,” he stated, in what seems to be the most sensible and at the same time most utopian slogan of the year.
But it didn’t stop there. In a speech that could be summarized as “a manual for surviving the most complicated neighborhood on the planet,” he added with a dose of optimistic realism: “The only way to get through the hard parts is to resist the external circumstances and the noise that is out there, to keep working together, to roll up your sleeves and do the hard things that are hard just because they are. But within that, there is opportunity.” In other words, the recipe is: suck it up, ignore the drama and get to work. Revolutionary.
Invest in Ports and Patience
Ng, displaying enviable pragmatism, highlighted that this trilateral relationship is key to developing commercial, logistics and energy infrastructure. It seems that nearshoring doesn’t work just by wishing it to after all; you need ports, roads and maybe an occasional miracle. “If we are doing more nearshoring, then we will need the logistics and the commercial infrastructure,” he noted, enlightening us with the most lucrative truism of the century. “There is a real opportunity to develop infrastructure like ports,” he exemplified, from Mexico City, probably looking longingly at a map of roads without potholes.
The former minister, with her sights set on a future that the rest of us sometimes doubt exists, emphasized the importance of a strategic vision that includes everything from renewable energy to nuclear energy, and health technology. Areas that, according to her, not only respond to current needs, but also offer investment opportunities with tangible returns. “These are areas that also offer a great investment climate, because the predictability of the environment that allows these projects to take place will generate true returns for investors,” he commented. Or what is the same: in an unpredictable world, betting on the predictable is the new high-risk business.
For those who think that this USMCA is a recent fad, Ng gave them a history lesson: he recalled that cooperation in North America is the result of more than 30 years of joint work. “These are relationships. We have been in a relationship for more than 30 years and we have achieved many things together. It is very easy to get carried away by external circumstances and narratives, but we have to adopt a long-term vision,” he stated. Basically, he asked us to act like responsible adults in the middle of a geopolitical playground.
Official Optimism: A High Risk Sport
And, as in every good comedy, there was a second part. Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Esteban Moctezuma, took the stage to deliver his own dose of optimism. He affirmed that there is flexibility in the US government, mentioning as a concrete example work visas for construction, thus finally recognizing the importance of Mexican workers. Something is something.
He said that the basis of the T-MEC is “strong and robust”, and that the Mexican government understands “the needs of the United States and what President Donald Trump wants, how to focus and address all of that.” A diplomatic achievement without a doubt, deciphering the wishes of one of the most unpredictable figures in modern politics. To top it off, he mentioned “a great advance” on thorny issues such as migration and fentanyl, ensuring that “the negotiation has been quite healthy because we have not only considered the needs of Mexico, but also of the United States.” Wow, it looks like win-win negotiation wasn’t as dead as we thought.
Thus, between calls for dialogue and displays of cautious optimism, the future of the trilateral relationship is painted as a bet where sanity and infrastructure are the strong cards. Because, at the end of the day, someone has to build the ports we’ll need to keep trading… and maybe to escape if everything goes wrong.
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