Trump is destroying America's geopolitical advantage / the strategic costs of confrontation with Canada and Mexico

Trump's confrontational policy against Canada and Mexico weakens America's most important geopolitical advantage, namely the integrity and power of North America, and endangers Washington's security and economic interests. The post Trump is destroying America's geopolitical advantage / The strategic costs of confrontation with Canada and Mexico appeared first on Safir Arjan.

According to Ambassador Arjan, Robert B. Rep. Zoellick, the former US Deputy Secretary of State from 2005 to 2006, published a note in Foreign Affairs and wrote: The Trump administration's attack on Canada and Mexico will shake the foundations of US global power. Friendly relations with neighbors strengthen security, increase common economic interests, and make it easier to deal with transnational challenges. Weak neighbors export problems.

Today, many Canadians consider the heavy tariffs of Donald Trump, the president of the United States, and the humiliation of their country by proposing the idea of turning Canada into a "fifty-wicked state" an attack on their economy and national independence. In Mexico, Trump's economic pressures and his threats of military intervention have revived deep historical concerns about US hegemony in the region.

The North American Partnership has been formed over several generations. In the 19th century, American foreign policy was mainly focused on this continent; Where the country competed for supremacy with France, Mexico, Russia, Spain, Great Britain and indigenous communities.

As the United States became a world power in the 20th century, American strategists took North American relations for granted. Washington turned its attention to Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East.

However, since the last years of the Cold War, American presidents once again realized the necessity of investing in North America. When Ronald Reagan began his presidential campaign in 1979, he made his strategic rationale clear: "The key to our future security may lie in the fact that both Canada and Mexico become much more powerful than they are today." It is time to stop treating our closest neighbors as strangers.

Geopolitics begins with geography, and the geography of the United States has given this country a huge advantage over other major powers.

China and Russia each have to manage their relations with 14 neighbors; Neighbors, many of whom do not have friendly relations or are unhappy with the history of past conflicts. India also has to interact with six neighbors, including a nuclear rival.

The access of all three powers to the open waters of the world also depends on passing through the sea bottlenecks. On the other hand, America has two stable neighbors that are not a threat and at the same time it has the possibility of free shipping in two vast oceans.

Therefore, working closely with Canada and Mexico will strengthen America's homeland security, attract investment, increase innovation, create a huge market of resources and human resources, and help all three countries deal with criminal networks, illegal immigration, and threats to clean air, water, and wildlife.

However, Trump's behavior alienates America's natural partners from this country. The US president is destroying a valuable geopolitical asset: a powerful continental base from which Washington exercises its global power.

William Seward, the US Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869, was the first to realize that good relations with the United States' neighbors could increase the country's global influence. He believed that "controlling this continent means having decisive interests in the world".

When Seward was negotiating the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, he noted that Alaska and the Aleutian Islands "extend a friendly hand to Asia." He also attempted to purchase Greenland, Iceland, the Hawaiian Islands, and some Caribbean islands, hoping that these purchases would help secure US sea lanes.

However, Seward realized that America could increase its power not only through territorial expansion, but also by strengthening economic ties. He hated European imperialist conquests in other lands. He also opposed the American-Mexican war in 1846-1848.

After the American Civil War ended in 1865, Seward prevented American generals Ulysses Grant and Philip Sheridan from invading Mexico to overthrow Maximilian of Habsburg—the Austrian archduke whom the French had installed as emperor of Mexico.

He believes that a military attack will provoke the hostility of the Mexicans, and the people of Mexico can remove this imposed ruler by themselves; What happened in 1867.

Seward also interacted with America's northern neighbor through diplomacy. In 1867, the British government united its North American colonies and formed the Canadian Confederation; An action that part of its purpose was to prevent Washington's possible attack on Canada in response to London's support for the Southern Confederacy in the American Civil War.

In response, Seward chose the peaceful route of arbitration to resolve the remaining differences from the war with Britain.

Seward believed that a union in North America should be based on the free choice of states, not coercion or military conquest. He believed in the power of American attraction. In his opinion, business could be the "new god of borders"; A force that redefines borders and brings countries closer together.

Seward's biographer Ernest Paulino called this view "Syward's Imperial Law of Attraction."

But Seward's prospects dimmed in the following decades; Because Americans turned their attention to the west and paid less attention to the importance of relations with their northern and southern neighbors.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the United States saw continental harmony as a given. The Mexican Revolution in 1910 destroyed this sense of security.

In the decade of violent conflict that followed, attacks on US border towns and confiscation of American property by revolutionaries and armed groups prompted Washington to launch two military operations inside Mexico.

America narrowly avoided getting caught up in Mexico's war of attrition. Woodrow Wilson's 1916 campaign slogan, "He kept us out of the war," referred not only to Europe, but also to the Mexican crisis.

However, instability in America's neighborhood made the country vulnerable. In 1917, the German Empire made a secret proposal for an alliance with the new Mexican government; A message intercepted by Britain.

According to this proposal, if the United States entered World War I, if Mexico sided with Germany, Berlin would help the country to recapture Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

The United States was able to stabilize relations with the authoritarian one-party government that took control of Mexico in the 1920s. As political scientist Pamela Starr has explained, Washington accepted the independence of its southern neighbor, but "within limits."

As long as Mexico did not threaten American security, the United States would not interfere in the country's internal affairs. Mexico's stability was more important than challenging its weak democracy, sensitive nationalism, and closed economy.

This agreement lasted for about 50 years; A period during which the two countries found ways to cooperate. For example, between 1942 and 1964, the United States issued about 4.6 million temporary work permits to Mexican citizens under the "Bracero" program, thus compensating for labor shortages in agriculture, railroads, and other industries.

The 20th century also saw Canada transform from a British dependent territory to an independent and united partner of North America.

In the 1920s and 1930s, America and Canada built bridges and tunnels to increase economic exchanges between the two countries. US Secretary of State Cordell Hall negotiated important reciprocal trade agreements with Canada in 1935 and 1938.

After World War II, Canadians fought alongside American forces in the Korean War and strongly supported the creation of NATO, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the United Nations, and other institutions that shaped the postwar order.

In the 1950s, the United States and Canada built the St. Lawrence waterway. The two countries also set up an extensive radar system to monitor possible missile attacks from the North Pole. In 1965, they signed an agreement to create a unified car market without tariffs.

Links that connect two countries

The process of North American integration accelerated during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Reagan's close relationship with Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney led Mulroney to propose a comprehensive free trade agreement in 1985.

This decision was a big risk for Mulroney; Because Canadians were concerned about economic dependence or American dominance, but at the same time they wanted to create rules that would control American business behavior and encourage investment.

The two countries reached an agreement in 1987 and the US Congress ratified it the following year. Canada's 1988 election effectively became a referendum on this agreement; The referendum in which Mulroney won.

Carlos Salinas, who became president of Mexico that same year, saw that a similar agreement could open up his country's economy and attract investment.

Mexico was facing debt crises, declining energy revenues and the collapse of the economic model based on the state-centered and party monopoly of several decades; A model that created a centralized and closed economy.

Salinas took a bold step in 1990 to break out of the recession and push forward reforms by proposing a free trade agreement to George H.W. W. Bush, the President of the United States, presented.

Canada joined the negotiations in 1991, and the three countries signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1992.