Taking notice

The countries who signed onto CAFTA may not be paying attention to the U.S.' record in meeting its trade commitments - but the softwood lumber dispute apparently hasn't escaped the attention of the third member of NAFTA:

Mexican President Vicente Fox has lauded the North American Free Trade Agreement while appearing to criticize the United States for failing to abide by recent softwood lumber rulings...

(T)he Mexican president appeared to take a shot at the Americans over their handling of the lumber tiff.

In the preliminary text for a speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade, Fox says Mexico regrets any "unilateral decision that fails to abide by the decisions of the arbitration panels."

It's questionable whether NAFTA deserves all the credit given to it by Fox elsewhere in the article. But it's now clear that Canada isn't alone in its concern about the U.S.' actions: Mexico too realizes that the agreement is somewhat undermined at best, and utterly useless at worst, if the other signatories can't count on U.S. compliance. The public statement won't be enough to push the U.S. into action, but it has to help the process.

Update: Some later remarks from Fox were even better than the prepared speech:

"Mexico fully supports Canada's position to make sure the decisions of the NAFTA panels in the settlement of disputes are upheld," Fox said.