In January 2009, the United States will have a new president. A majority of North Americans will cheer that day.

If you asked them why, a preponderance of Canadians would site the American invasion of Iraq, presidential torture and the American preoccupation with border security (read inconvenience, delay and barriers to trade). If you ask the Americans, they would agree with us on Iraq but add loss of jobs, healthcare coverage, the sub-prime mortgage housing crisis, trillion dollar deficits and the battered image of the United States in the world.

In a bid to polish his legacy, George Bush met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexico’s President Felipe Calde earlier this week in New Orleans (Monday and Tuesday) to discuss the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and border security issues.

The backdrop to these discussions is the U.S. primary season and recent threats by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to scrap the fourteen year old NAFTA if Canada and Mexico refuse to make concessions on labour and environmental standards. The Clinton/Obama threats were exacerbated by an off the record meeting between a representative of Obama and a senior Canadian diplomat where apparently it was suggested that Obama was just talking election-speak and had no intention of withdrawing from NAFTA.

That conversation was leaked to the media by a high-ranking Canadian official. It is assumed by many that the leak contributed to Obama’s defeat in the Ohio primary. The resulting publicity prompted Mr. Harper to initiate an investigation into the source of the leak.

One irony in all of this is that both Clinton and Obama blame NAFTA for job losses in the United States when in fact most of the losses have been created by out-sourcing of U.S. manufacturing and service jobs to China in the first instance and India in the second. Their unstated concern is that thousands of manufacturing jobs have also been lost to Mexico in response to its low wage environment.

In this week’s NAFTA discussions, Prime Minister Harper responded to the Clinton/Obama threats by telling Mr. Bush that any reopening of NAFTA would cost the United States. He naively reminded the Americans that energy is important to them and that Canada is their single largest supplier of energy (mainly oil and natural gas).

He suggested that if NAFTA was reopened for discussion, Canada would be in a much stronger bargaining position than it was twenty years ago, the implication being that the United States would be the loser. Apparently, President Bush burst out laughing at these remarks.

That brings me to the David and Goliath part of the story. The discussions between the three leaders have dominated Canadian media all week. I’m sitting here in the southern United States where it’s a non-event. On Wednesday, I picked up the local papers plus USA Today to see what had happened on Tuesday. There was nothing. Only USA Today, on its page four, buried half a dozen paragraphs of report on the meetings – the implication being that the presidential/prime ministerial meetings were non-events, certainly when compared to front page headline coverage of Hillary Clinton’s Pennsylvania primary victory or former President Jimmy Carter’s meetings with Hamas.

On Thursday, I went to a U.S. sports bar to watch the Montreal-Philadelphia hockey game. There were a bunch of Canadians there and a contingent of Philadelphians. The atmosphere was warm and friendly for most of the evening until the Canadians tied the score and a bunch of Canadians (not the hockey team) began parading their success. The mood changed dramatically.

One of the Philadelphia fans yelled something punitive at the Canadians and the fun was over.

My point is that Canada’s relationship with the United States is deep but fragile. They are far more important to us than we are to them. 75% of our exports go to that country and account for more than a quarter of our gross domestic product (GDP). They are a military super-power and an economic super-power, even though they are indebted to the world and suffocating in their own debt.

Like it or not, Canada is a minor player in the U.S. scheme of things even though we are their biggest suppliers of energy and their second biggest trading partner. The current NAFTA issues are cover for America’s concern for its economy, its preoccupation with border security and “illegal aliens” (read Mexican immigrants – the Lou Dobb factor) and its loss of economic superiority to China, India and much of Asia.

For American politicians, NAFTA is a side show where Canada gets dragged into U.S. - Mexico issues whether they be drugs, border security or immigration to avoid offending Hispanic voters. We need to wake up to this reality and do something about it.