Obama Ends North American Trilateralism

On a sunny August morning in 2007, while protesters were cordoned off by a security perimeter and reporters corralled into a side room, a high-powered meeting took place inside Quebec’s woodsy Château Montebello. On one side of a square meeting table sat Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his aides. On another sat then-U.S. president George W. Bush and his entourage, and on a third, the delegation of Mexican President Felipe Calderón. On the fourth side, in a rare position to hold the simultaneous attention of all three leaders of North America, sat the CEOs of corporate titans like Wal-Mart, Lockheed Martin, the Campbell Soup Co. and Procter & Gamble—each armed with a wish list of ways to change economic and trade regulations to increase profit and efficiency.