This Commentary is based on remarks by AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley to the World Affairs Council of Maine*.
Crowley talks about the relationship between trade, freedom and prosperity. He explores the unique economic and trade relationship that Canada and the U.S. are in the midst of creating in North America, often in spite of ourselves, and the challenges of managing this new creation successfully. And he explains how trade, the freedom on which it is premised, and the prosperity it can create, could affect the northeast corner of North America known as Atlantica.
Crowley as the Distinguished Speaker at the Sumner Bernstein Forum for International Understanding told the audience:
“I even think that the whole metaphor of trade is now too narrow to encompass what is being built around us, as Bernard Mandeville said in the 18th century, the product of human actions, but not of human design. This new North American reality is under construction all around us by dint of the actions we all take every day. What has not caught up yet is the legal, institutional and regulatory frameworks that are still based on the old self-contained national economy model.”
To read the complete Commentary, click here.
To view the PowerPoint slides that accompanied Crowley’s talk, click here.
*The World Affairs Council of Maine’s annual Sumner Bernstein Forum for International Understanding hosts prominent international figures to reflect on their societies and their perceptions of the United States. The Forum honors the memory of Sumner Bernstein (1924-2002), a distinguished attorney and Director of the Council with a life-long interest in international affairs. Each forum addresses the important lesson drawn from the terrorist attacks on America of September 11, 2001, that our society must better understand foreign cultures and their perception of us. The Bernstein Forum enables international figures to reflect on their societies and their perceptions of the United States. Past Bernstein Forums have been conducted by representatives of Afghanistan, Brazil, Israel and Korea.
