Between three and four hundred thousand people cross the U.S. – Canadian border each day. 7.1 million American jobs and 3 million Canadian ones are dependent upon cross-border trade. Since 9/11, a myriad of new security and trade regulations have led to costly delays or “thickening” of the border. Two new reports were released this month encouraging solutions to enhance security, reduce compliance costs and expedite trade and travel at U.S. – Canadian border points.

Toward a New Frontier: Improving the U.S. – Canadian Border, authored by Chris Sands of The Hudson Institute, as part of the Metropolitan Policy Program of The Brookings Institution and Finding The Balance: Shared Border of the Future, sponsored jointly by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Canadian Chamber of Commerce, both provide important and timely guidance to provincial, state and federal governments.

In addition to further infrastructure investment, both reports call for more common sense flexibility in resource allocation at the border and refinement to regulations and operating procedures so that both countries can be made more secure, while at the same time ensuring more efficient movement of low-risk goods and people.

Canada is the largest trading partner for 37 of 50 states. With more than $1.6 billion in two-way trade crossing the border each day, this is the largest bi-lateral trading relationship in the world. Process and infrastructure enhancements at the border can have a huge impact in better positioning both countries for economic recovery. Both reports are essential reads for the Harper and Obama administrations.

Tags: Border, Trade

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 at 9:51 am and is filed under Issue This. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.