United States, Canada have close relationship despite some disputes

In an address to the Canadian Parliament in 1961, U.S. President Kennedy said, “Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies.” 
  
These remarks are not surprising, given the fact that the two nations share a common border more than 5,500 miles long, more than 20 percent of the world’s fresh water in the Great Lakes and an annual import-export relationship of approximately $1.4 billion per day in goods, services and investments. 
  
The Maritime Provinces have little or no intergovernmental relationship with the United States, but a simmering dispute over a tiny island alternates between the serious and near comical. 
  
Machias Seal Island, which sits between New Brunswick and Maine, is claimed by both the United States and Canada. While the two governments both lay peaceful but uncompromising claim to the rocky outcropping, residents of both nations profit from the island as well as the surrounding lobster-filled water.  
 
Birders consider it to be the best place in America to see Atlantic puffins, and other birds abound there as well.  
  
One birding tour owner in Maine claims to personally own the island and, according to CBS News, plants a U.S. flag each time he steps onto the island, claiming it for the United States. Canada holds its claim on the island by maintaining a lighthouse there. 
  
On a grander scale, the relationship between Canada and the United States has been described by the U.S. Department of State as “probably the closest and most extensive in the world.” But it has not been without difficulties. 
  
In a March 2006 meeting in Cancun, Mexico, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Bush outlined the major issues between the two nations, listing travel between the countries, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and softwood lumber as three points.
  
While the two nations have made progress on all of the issues since the Cancun meeting, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) issues are perhaps the most pressing from the Canadian perspective. 
  
According to the U.S. State Department, the goal of WHTI is to strengthen border security in the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001.
  
Estimates put the number of border crossings between the United States and Canada at an astonishing rate of 200 million per year. While crossing into Canada in the past has only required minimal do cumentation, WHTI will impose more stringent requirements. 
  
Currently air travelers are required to present a valid U.S. passport when traveling from the United States into Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Bermuda. 
  
Canada’s tourism industry opposes the initiative, estimating that it will lose $3.6 billion in tourism by 2010. Implementation for land and sea travelers, previously scheduled to take effect this year, has been suspended until at least Jan. 1, 2008. 
  
The binational NORAD, which may be best known for tracking Santa’s movements each Christmas eve, is  responsible for aerospace warning and control and for tracking air shipments of illegal drugs, according to the agency’s Web site. 
  
The renewed agreement between the United States and Canada signed in May 2006 added a maritime warning function to NORAD. 
  
The softwood lumber issue was temporarily settled in July 2006 by a seven-year agreement. 
  
Sources estimate that as many as 15,000 Canadian jobs were lost in the province of British Columbia alone in 2002 when the United States levied a 27 percent import duty on softwood lumber such as pine, spruce and fir.
  
The United States contended that the Canadian government’s ownership of timberlands amounted to a subsidy that put American foresters in an unfavorable position. 
  
In the agreement, the United States agreed to refund about $4 billion of the $5 billion it has collected, but it will place restrictions on the amount of lumber imported from Canada if prices fall too far. Additionally the Canadian government will collect export taxes if the price falls below a specified level.