NA77 Weekly North American Affairs · Week of June 21–27, 2026
A weekly read for North Americans who believe the continent is worth more together than apart — what moved this week, what it means, and what it asks of us.
THE LONGVIEW
The Strength to Build
Three nations, each deciding to be great — and the single test, measured in megawatts, that will decide which of them is.
by Eduardo Joffroy
This publication believes something simple and demanding: North America becomes great only when each of its three nations decides to be great on its own. Not one strong country carrying and commanding the rest. Not three economies too tied together to fail.
Three countries, each with its own vision of nation and society, with firm foundations and clear advantages — choosing to build together because strength, added to strength, multiplies.
This week I wish I could ask the leaders of all three North American countries the same question:
Are you willing to build together? Do we agree that together we are greater that alone? Are we willing to set aside our countries political conflicts to focus on the longview?
For Mexico, the question landed as a disappointment. Its growth forecast was cut again, to barely above 1%, with productivity nearly stalled. From five thousand feet up, it screams dependence — on remittances, on the U.S. consumer, on someone else’s demand. I prefer to see it as a wake-up call: an invitation to go far beyond remittances.
Plan México, the $82.5 billion in data centers landing in Querétaro, the new industrial hubs — these are not the reflexes of a country waiting to be rescued. They are the unfinished work of one that decided to be great. Dependence is a story told about you. Building is a decision you make.
Canada got the same question and answered out loud. Its new national AI strategy is, beneath the official language, a refusal: the refusal to keep cutting the wood and pumping the oil for a richer neighbor, and the decision to build the industries of the century at home.
And the United States, with all its advantages, faces the hardest version of the question: not whether it can invent, but whether it can build fast enough to keep what it invents.
Three nations, three decisions to be great. But deciding is the cheap part. The expensive part — the test that turns the wish to be great into the proof of it — arrived this week with the least glamorous word in the language:
ELECTRICITY.
The race that defines our century — artificial intelligence, and everything stacked on top of it — is not held back by a lack of talent, or even a lack of capital. It is held back by energy. Mexico has to multiply its data-center electricity sixfold by 2030 if it wants to sustain the investment already arriving; an American developer is building its own substation in Querétaro rather than wait for the public grid; and the hardest, most fought-over chapter in the entire USMCA renegotiation is — not by coincidence — energy.
In the age of intelligent machines, the border that decides the future is not the line on the map. It is the edge of the power grid.
That is the whole argument, and it is a builder’s argument. A country’s greatness in this century will be measured in megawatts before it is measured in models — in whether it can land the permits, the money, and the concrete for the power that intelligence runs on.
The country that builds energy at scale keeps the future; the one that can’t, rents it.
And here, at last, being great and being continental are the same thing. Three nations that can each build their own energy, their chips, their ports, their rails and their launch pads do not need one another. They choose one another. And an alliance of the strong is the only one that lasts; one of the weak collapses at the first blow.
That is why North America’s argument has to grow up. The continent does not become great because its countries are too tied together to fail. It becomes great because each one decides, on its own, to do the hard, unglamorous work of building for the Western Hemisphere’s future — and discovers that the strength it earned alone is worth more, not less, when it shares it.
Greatness is neither inherited nor free. It is built. And today it is built in megawatts.
Dreaming costs nothing; the grid does not — and the future will belong to whoever pays for it.
AFFAIRS
TRADE & POLICY
The architecture that lets goods, capital, and trust cross three borders — and where it is cracking.
The treaty has a social majority; the negotiation has no shared consensus. A trilateral poll published June 26 found that 78% of Americans, 81% of Canadians, and 73% of Mexicans consider USMCA/T-MEC/CUSMA good for their economies — but they split on the mandate: 51% in the U.S. and 52% in Canada prefer to keep the current terms, while 50% in Mexico prefer to renegotiate (Chicago Council, June 26). The continent enters its review with a paradox: almost everyone wants to keep the agreement; not everyone wants to keep the same agreement.
Forced labor enters North America’s tariff board. USTR’s Section 301 docket named Canada and Mexico among six economies for failing to effectively enforce a ban on importing goods made with forced labor, and proposed additional tariffs of 10% or 12.5%. The in-window date was June 22 (deadline to request to appear at hearings); written comments close July 6 and the public hearing is July 7 at the USITC. Labor traceability, customs, and supplier management become a single continental conversation — and one that can now be triggered by a unilateral U.S. lever, not only the treaty.
CAPITAL & INDUSTRY
Where the money is voting — and what it is voting against.
Two central banks, one trade uncertainty. Banxico held its rate at 6.50% on June 25 (unanimous), with first-half-June inflation at 3.55% headline and 4.12% core. The Bank of Canada (deliberations published June 24) held at 2.25% and warned that new U.S. trade restrictions or a drawn-out CUSMA review could deepen the damage to trade-exposed sectors, jobs, and investment. Different inflation cycles, one shared political variable: U.S. trade uncertainty, transmitted through the exchange rate, investment, and regional chains.
The peso’s daily price is integration infrastructure. Banxico published a FIX exchange rate of 17.4700 pesos per dollar on June 26. In weeks of trade negotiation and divergent rates, the peso is the daily price of payroll, remittances, imports, and margins along the corridor — the thermometer of regional confidence.
(Secondary, dated in-window: oil fell to pre-war lows — WTI below $70, Brent ~$73.50 on June 24 — as the Iran ceasefire held. Useful color for the energy thread; CNN, June 24.)
RESOURCES, RISK & ENERGY
The continent runs on things it rarely prices correctly: water, energy, and time.
Canada bids to be an “energy superpower” — but resilience is continental. Natural Resources Canada (June 26) reported record crude output of 5.4 million barrels a day in 2025, Canada as the world’s #4 producer supplying ~7% of global demand, and a ministerial agenda to harden energy infrastructure, advance electricity interconnections, expand biofuels, and improve emergency coordination. The Bank of Canada itself noted those energy exports are sustaining U.S. activity. Regional energy security is physical infrastructure, trade rules, and coordination — not just reserves.
Screwworm: the ag border closes before the risk is local. USDA APHIS updated its New World screwworm status on June 24, adjusting the sterile-fly release polygon by modeling to prevent spread; southern ports remain closed to cattle trade, and Mexico’s SENASICA reclassifies active cases every 15 days. A biological-risk closure can be as disruptive to North American supply chains as a tariff.
SOCIAL & CITIZENS
Integration is not only contracts and corridors. It is the shared experience that turns three populations into one audience.
The World Cup begins testing three countries’ cultural infrastructure. FIFA announced June 26 that audio descriptive commentary will be available for every 2026 World Cup match and the closing ceremony — English and French in Canada, English and Spanish in the U.S. and Mexico. The host region has to behave as a single cultural platform — accessibility, mobility, bilingual operation — before a global audience. (Context, near-window: by June 24–25 all three hosts had advanced — Mexico won its group, the U.S. won Group D, Canada advanced as a group runner-up.)
Trade integrates economies. Only citizens can integrate a continent.
The Supreme Court redraws the asylum line at the Mexico–U.S. border. On June 25 the Supreme Court decided Mullin v. Al Otro Lado: a person in Mexico does not “arrive in the United States” by attempting to cross without setting foot on U.S. soil — “arrives” occurs only at the crossing (opinion by Alito, joined by Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett; Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissenting). The physical line becomes the legal line for initial asylum access and inspection: the queue, the port, and the side you stand on become part of the citizenship-and-protection regime.
San Diego concentrates citizenship, security, and the everyday economy. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California reported 122 border-related cases for the week (smuggling people for profit, illegal reentry, controlled-substance importation); the district spans 140 miles of border and includes San Ysidro, the world’s busiest land crossing (DOJ SDCA, June 26).
A Canada–U.S. case shows the northern border is in the same web. The Department of Justice reported June 26 that a dual Canadian-American citizen, extradited from Canada, pleaded guilty in a human-smuggling conspiracy that killed a family — including two children under three — in the St. Lawrence River. Mobility, vulnerability, and jurisdiction operate as a network on the northern border too.
(NOT VERIFIED in-window — held out for now: the “sixth consecutive monthly decline” in remittances. Do not publish as a this-week fact without a Banxico release dated June 21–27.)
AI & SPACE — The Race of Our Century
The running series: where the future is being built, financed, and powered across the three nations.
AI: Mexico is becoming the continent’s factory floor — until the grid says no. The Mexican Data Center Association’s $82.5B buildout (2026–2031) is colliding with power: an Institute of the Americas warning (June 22) said the boom hinges on Mexico expanding reliable electricity; developer CloudHQ is building its own ~$4.8B campus with its own substation in Querétaro rather than wait for the public grid. The continental tell: the U.S. roughly doubled its server and processor imports from Mexico, toward ~$90 billion.
AI: the lanes diverge. Canada advanced a national AI strategy (data centres, adoption); Qualcomm launched an AI data-center CPU and signed Meta as a customer (CNBC, June 24); U.S. data-center electricity demand has nearly doubled, to ~42 GW in 2026, driving the nuclear-and-grid scramble.
Space: the engines fire on the continent’s southern edge. SpaceX static-fired Ship 40 (Raptor 3 engine, ~15 seconds) at Starbase, Texas on June 26, prepping Starship’s Flight 13 — the vehicle NASA is banking on for Artemis. Starbase sits on the Rio Grande, across from Matamoros, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen flies on Artemis II.
DATA
78% / 81% / 73% — share who call USMCA good for their economy (U.S. / Canada / Mexico) (Chicago Council, Jun 26)
51% / 52% / 19% — prefer to keep the current treaty terms (U.S. / Canada / Mexico) (Chicago Council)
36% / 24% / 50% — prefer renegotiated or new terms (U.S. / Canada / Mexico) (Chicago Council)
6.50% — Banxico target rate, held unanimously June 25 (Banxico)
3.55% / 4.12% — Mexico headline / core inflation, first half of June (Banxico)
2.25% — Bank of Canada policy rate; deliberations published June 24 (Bank of Canada)
17.4700 — peso FIX, June 26 (Banxico)
10% / 12.5% — additional tariffs proposed in USTR’s Section 301 forced-labor action (USTR)
5.4M b/d / ~7% — record Canadian crude output (2025) / Canada’s share of global demand (NRCan, Jun 26)
$82.5B — Mexico data-center buildout, 2026–2031 (MEXDC; Institute of the Americas, Jun 22)
~42 GW — U.S. data-center electricity demand in 2026 (up from ~23 GW in 2023) (EIA/DOE)
122 / 140 miles — border cases filed in the week / length of border, Southern District of California (DOJ SDCA, Jun 26)
KEY DATES
Jun 22 — Deadline to request to appear at USTR Section 301 (forced-labor) hearings.
Jun 24 — Bank of Canada publishes deliberations (CUSMA + U.S. restrictions = macro uncertainty).
Jun 25 — Banxico holds at 6.50%; the Supreme Court decides Mullin v. Al Otro Lado.
Jun 26 — NRCan “energy superpower” agenda; FIFA accessibility announcement; DOJ SDCA 122-case report.
Jul 6 — USTR Section 301 written comments close.
Jul 7 — USTR Section 301 public hearing (USITC).
End of 2026 — Colorado River 2007 guidelines, 2019 drought contingency plans, and 1944 Water Treaty minutes expire (final post-2026 guidelines due ~August 2026).
NA77 COLLECTIONS
A shelf that compounds — not a weekly list. Each edition adds; nothing is deleted.
Added this week
Read (essay) — Ray Dalio, “The Tribute System: The New World Order” (Jun 18 — out of strict window; used only as a conceptual frame, not as a fact of the week). The global order shifts from rules to spheres of power. →
Read (Substack) — Ruben Hassid, “AI will fail” (Jun 23). Two centuries of experts who declared the best technology of their time dead on arrival — and now AI. The same reflex that bets against every general-purpose technology bets against continental integration. →
Watch / Follow — FIFA 2026 accessibility (Jun 26). Audio descriptive commentary for every match, with operating languages by host nation: a high-value, continental social pick.
Sources: Chicago Council on Global Affairs · USTR (Section 301) · Banco de México · Bank of Canada · Natural Resources Canada · USDA APHIS / SENASICA · Supreme Court of the United States (Mullin v. Al Otro Lado) · U.S. Department of Justice (SDCA and Office of Public Affairs) · FIFA · MEXDC / Institute of the Americas · CNBC · EIA/DOE · Space.com · CNN · Ray Dalio (Principled Perspectives) · Ruben Hassid (How to AI).