NORTH AMERICA
OVERVIEW
The three countries which make up North America– the US, Canada, and Mexico– are all major economic powers and members of the G20.
Canada and Mexico, among the world’s largest economies, are the US’s top trade partners, and both have strong bilateral relations with the US. Trade between the three North American countries is regulated by the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which replaced NAFTA in 2020.
Canada was explored and colonized by Europeans in the 17th century largely for the fur trade. The provinces united into the self-governing British colony of Canada in 1867. The country gained independence from Britain in several stages, achieving legal autonomy in the 1930s and the right to draft its own constitution in the 1980s. It is still part of the British Commonwealth, an association of former British colonies.
Mexico had been ruled by the Mesoamerican Aztec Empire for two centuries when it was conquered by the Spanish in the 1500s. It won the war for independence from Spain in the early 1800s, and lost half its territory to the US in the Mexican American War in the mid 1800s. The Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 replaced dictatorship with democracy and established a constitutional republic.
BRIEF OVERVIEW OF RECENT HISTORY
19TH CENTURY
During the 19th century, the US was a major world economic power, with booming manufacturing and production, fruitful global trade, and abundant raw materials. The US was not very involved in foreign affairs and empire building overseas, but on the American continent it pursued an aggressive campaign of expansion westward which led to territory conflict with Mexico in the mid-1800s. The Mexican American War resulted in Mexico ceding a huge amount of territory to the US, including today’s California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Texas.
Like the US, Canada was not yet a major player on the world stage in the 19th century. Canada became a self-governing federation of the British Empire in 1867. In the late 1800s it experienced a wheat boom which led to economic prosperity and population growth.
Mexico, having won independence from Spain in 1821, struggled with instability until coming under the control of the Porfirio Diaz dictatorship in the late 1800s. This dictatorship lasted for several decades without fair elections, and although it brought modernization and improvements to the country, the improvements were to the the benefit of the elite and foreign investors, and at the expense of the rural poor. Dissatisfaction with this inequality would lead to the Mexican Revolution of 1910.
MEXICAN REVOLUTION
The 1910 Mexican Revolution began with an attempt to establish free and democratic elections and the ousting of longtime dictator Porfirio Diaz.
The war lasted over a decade and involved numerous regime changes and factions vying for power, including the Zapatista peasant army, strongman authoritarian leader Huerta and revolutionary leader Pancho Villa.
The US had economic interests in Mexico and supported regimes which would protect its financial interests there. This led to high tension between the countries, border incidents, two US incursions into Mexico including the invasion and occupation of Gulf of Mexico port city Veracruz in 1914, and Pancho Villa’s raid in New Mexico in 1916.
Although the revolution officially ended in 1917 and the country became a constitutional republic, violence and unrest persisted further into the 20th century.
WORLD WAR I
Both the US and Canada made a significant contribution to the Allied war effort in World War I, which brought them to the forefront of the world stage.
Despite Germany’s attempts to draw Mexico into an alliance, the country remained neutral in World War I.
CONSEQUENCES OF WORLD WAR I
The US emerged from the war a major world power, having provided vital assistance to the Allied victory. President Woodrow Wilson played a key role in postwar planning, and was the architect of the League of Nations, a forerunner of the United Nations. The US senate, however, voted not to have the US join the league. The failture of the US to join the league is considered to have made the league less effective at its peace-keeping aims.
Canada was a founding member of the League of Nations, and Mexico joined the league as well.
The US and Canada had experienced a significant economic boom during the war and an acceleration of industrial productivity.
Like other countries in the British Commonwealth which sacrificed lives to the war, Canada sought greater autonomy from Britain in the post-war period. In 1931 it achieved legal autonomy with the Statute of Westminster.
INTERWAR
In the interwar period, both the US and Canada became relatively isolationist, wary of the European entanglements that had brought them into the Great War, and focused on domestic problems brought on by the Great Depression of 1929-1939.
Under FDR, the US adopted the Good Neighbor Policy, a policy of non-interference in Latin America. This brought Mexico and the US onto friendlier terms.
Mexico experienced a period of relative political stability and post-revolutionary reconstruction during the interwar time.
WORLD WAR II
In World War II, again both the US and Canada made a significant contribution to the Allied war effort and were instrumental in turning the tide of the war. Mexico and the US supported each other during the war.
Canada declared war after the invasion of Poland in 1939, following Great Britain and France’s declaration.
The US tried to remain neutral but was drawn into the war on December 7th, 1941 by Japan’s surprise attack on naval base Pearl Harbor which killed thousands of American servicemen and destroyed six ships and more than a hundred planes.
Once the US joined the war, the Allies proceeded to defeat first Germany and then Japan. A turning point in the Pacific theatre was the 1942 Battle of the Midway, in which American planes sank four Japanese aircraft carriers. A turning point in the European war was D-Day, the invasion of Normandy, in 1944, when Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy and successfully re-entered Nazi-occupied France.
The Allies achieved victory in Europe in May 1945, and several months later, the war against Japan was ended when the US dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing over a hundred thousand people (estimates of the death toll vary) and injuring countless others.
POSTWAR: US AS SUPERPOWER
After World War II, the victorious US, UK, and Soviet Union set the agenda for the postwar world. The US, which suffered fewer damages than Europe and Asia, emerged as a superpower.
The United Nations (UN) was created in 1945 and its headquarters were built in New York City. The purpose of the organization was to maintain peace and promote progress.
The US asserted its influence by sending funds to Europe to repair and rebuild with the Marshall Plan.
COLD WAR
The next decades would be defined by the Cold War– the competition between the world’s two superpowers, the US and the Soviet Union, for influence over the world. They were particularly vying for influence over “third world” countries, meaning the countries that were not already aligned with democracy or with communism. The third world included most of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
In 1949, the US, Canada, and several Western European nations formed NATO, the Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization, a defense alliance to protect against Soviet expansion.
In 1958, the US and Canada formed NORAD, the North American Air Defense Command to protect against Soviet bombers. Canada’s arctic region was of particular strategic importance for radar detection during the Cold War because of its proximity to the Soviet Union. Canada also had a key role in promoting democracy abroad, and in UN peacekeeping missions.
The US fought against Soviet-backed Communist regimes in the Korean War of 1950, and in the Vietnam War of 1955-75.
Mexico’s theatre of the Cold War was the Mexican Dirty War. From the 1960s-80s, the US-backed government cracked down on leftist insurgents, most significantly in the Tlatelolco Massacre in Mexico City in 1968 when the military opened fire on civilians protesting the government.
END OF COLD WAR
In the 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost (openness) and peretroiska (reform) and growing discontent in the Soviet Union led to its collapse. When it dissolved in 1991, the US became the world’s unrivaled superpower.
LATE 20TH CENTURY
In the decades after World War II, Mexico experienced great economic growth and industrialization, transforming into a major world player by the 1980s.
CONSTITUTION ACT
The Constitution Act of 1982 was the final step in Canada’s independence from the UK, allowing the country to draft its own constitution.
NAFTA and USCMA
In 1994, the US, Canada and Mexico signed NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which eliminated barriers to trade between the three countries.
In 2020, the agreement was renegotiated and replaced with the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, USCMA.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The United States of America, superpower since the end of World War II, has the world’s largest economy and most powerful military. One of the larger countries of the world geographically and by population (331 million), it possess great natural resources and is a leader in business, technology, and culture.
CANADA
Canada is the second largest country in the world after Russia, and its relatively small population of 38 million (comparable to to the state of California) mostly live close to the US border. It is incredibly rich in natural resources and is a major exporter of petroleum.
Canada is a member of the G7, group of the world’s largest economies.
The US and Canada enjoy the largest trading relationship in the world, and share the world’s longest international border.
The bilateral relationship between Canada and the US is particularly strong, and the countries have had a strong military relationship since the 1940s. Canada is a member of NATO (North American Treaty Organization) and NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command).
Since World War II, Canada has gone to war only as part of multinational coalitions, in conflicts including the Korean War, Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and has been a leader in peacekeeping operations and diplomacy.
In 1995, a referendum was held on the secession of Francophone (French-speaking) Quebec. Although it was voted down, the movement still exists.
MEXICO
With a population of 126 million, Mexico is one of the more populous countries in the world. It is the US’s second largest export market and third biggest trade partner after Canada and China.
Rich in natural resources, Mexico is a top producer of oil (the US gets much of its oil from Mexico) as well as gold and silver, and is a major exporter of agricultural products.
Wealth inequality and the ongoing drug war are persistent problems in Mexico. The US-Mexico border is a contentious issue, as the past few years have seen record high numbers of immigrants attempting to cross the border illegally. These migrants come from South America, Central America, and Cuba as well as from Mexico.
MEXICAN DRUG WAR
90% of illegal drugs in the US come from Mexico; with most heroin, fentanyl and methamphetamine produced in Mexico, and most cocaine produced in South America and then transported through Mexico.
Drug cartels, including the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels, run an industry larger than $1 billion in this trade, and the human cost is enormous. In 2018, Mexican President Obrador announced the drug war to be over, but the homicide rate remains high.
