North American Trade Bloc

Let’s do something to ensure a collective prosperity on the North American Continent.

A Summary & Extract from the Full Report. North American Trade Bloc

We are witnessing political change in many western governments that are moving toward a nation-centric leadership. Trump’s re-election in the USA is a prime example of the change underway.

Currently, an increasing portion of citizens in most western nations are disgruntled with declining prosperity and free trade globalization that has killed local industries and value-adding jobs. They are also reducing their commitment to climate change mitigation that has already damaged the cost of living. They are strongly questioning uncontrolled immigration that is overwhelming both social services and housing.

Many citizens now believe that the unrestrained globalization of trade and the uncontrolled financialization practiced so far in western economies has been the wrong direction as it has weakened national sovereignty, security and prosperity.

Also, long global supply chains have increased the sensitivity to systemic swings in economic demand and financial stability, such that supporting a globalized economy will be much more difficult to sustain.

It has also made some national economies over-dependent for a range of essential products and services on global actors that may not always have their best interests in mind.

Leading economists are now suggesting a major reorientation from globalism, consumerism, and financialization, toward an economic-policy framework that is rooted in localism, production and work.

All of this will further encourage deglobalization or regionalization of supply chains.

It will demand the need to Take Back Manufacturing within these localized trade blocs to create far more balanced and stable national economies that are highly sustainable and secure.

It is now clear that the worlds nations are not ready for a new world order, rule based or otherwise, or being over dependent on the concept of any form of multilateralism, internationalism or globalism.

For these reasons sensible nations will organize into autonomous localized trade blocs and reshore products and services and gain back as much resource and energy independence as possible. As mentioned already, these trade blocs must operate far differently than before, with no duplicitous multilateral trading agreements outside the trade bloc. Trade and economic capacity must, as much as practical be contained within the trade bloc through border tariffs and other trade controls.

It’s clear that the USA is now always going to be aligned with a nation-centric agenda whatever the political stripes in power, and its close neighbors (Canada and Mexico) must find a way to facilitate and encourage the satisfactory outcome of a “North American Super-Nation” operating as a “trade bloc” with associated policy agreements with far reaching commitments and measurable goals so that it will be lasting and binding and will benefit all the citizens of the North American Super-Nation with maximum security and prosperity.

Although Trump has upset many by saying Canada should become the 51^st US state he is technically correct that to make this North American Super-Nation work all three trade partners will need to put some national sovereignty aside and undertake a shared responsibility for the economy, maintenance, security and defence of the overall North American continent.

This journey toward a North American trade bloc would facilitate a massive trade reset that would improve the overall trade imbalance from a negative trade gap of almost $1.2 trillion to a positive trade gap of $720B ($1280- $560B). This would increase the overall trade bloc GDP “Annually” by almost 7% and would put almost $2 Trillion of more value adding GDP back into trade bloc economies, and this would constitute a massive opportunity to increase economic value across all trade bloc partners.

This trade bloc activity would not constrain the three trade partners from increasing exports to foreign markets provided it did not jeopardize any capacity and availability in local trade bloc supply chains.

It will take far more alignment of politics, finances, laws and operating social rules. And it will demand a far more common culture of mutual teamwork and respect that needs to be significantly rebuilt.

The poor alternative for Canada and Mexico, if they are excluded from this trade bloc, is a dire journey of having to rejoin an increasingly unstable and unrewarding global trade environment that they are economically, structurally, culturally, financially, and emotionally unprepared to participate in successfully.

Unfortunately, Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney has made Canada’s precarious position far worse, as his recent trade deals made with China against US trade sanctions, and his presentation at the 2026 WEF session that disrespected the USA approach to trade, was far from constructive toward pursuing the best alternatives for Canada with the USA. He implied that such a localized trade bloc agreement with the USA is both distasteful and impossible and that he is now pursuing a direction to take Canada backwards into the significant instability, impracticality and fragmentation of the global trade environment that he admits is already broken. And this activity from a leader that was voted into power to stabilize the existing and well integrated USMCA type agreement, not bad-mouth it and walk away in completely the opposite direction.

Also, any political leader that has become tainted with the past UN multilateral initiatives, the WEF globalized agenda, and the climate emergency rhetoric, will certainly struggle to accept and affiliate with the latest U.S. policies.

So its time for us North Americans to stop pandering to the virtue signaling hollow ring of national sovereignty, and get far more practical, and far less emotional, and come to realize that it is worthwhile and also very interesting to work together and see where the concepts of a North-American-super-nation could go, and how it could be structured, rather than continue to act like pompous spoiled neighbors that are not prepared to consider all the options that may be good for us all into the future. Many of us have always felt that we were North Americans first and national citizens a very close second. So, due to these very high stakes, lets work hard to keep it that way!!

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Nigel Southway is an independent business consultant and the author of Cycle Time Management: The Fast Track to Time-Based Productivity Improvement, a LEAN thinking textbook.

He consults and educates worldwide on Business Productivity Improvement, Advanced Manufacturing Engineering, and Global Sustainability.

He is a past chair of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and the leading advocate for the Take Back Manufacturing Forum, and the North American Reshoring initiative in Canada.

His latest book Take Back Manufacturing addresses the content contained in this article. www.nigelsouthway.org