Christopher Columbus is usually credited with “discovering” North America even though he encountered people who had arrived thousands of years earlier. He called them “Indians”, mistakenly believing he had reached a continent that was actually on the other side of the world. Not even Viking visitors who arrived centuries before made that mistake. By another twist of irony, the world mistakenly named the “new” continent after another Italian adventurer, Amerigo Vespucci, who arrived years after Columbus and, other than his name, left no impression.

About five centuries later, North America was “rediscovered” and, as with the earlier “discoveries”, this one too contained an ironic twist. Canada interrupted a discussion about free trade between Mexico and the United States in the spring of 1990 and asked to be included. Mexico and the United States consented, and North America was “born again” in the guise of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Whatever else it promised or achieved, NAFTA provided the region with a first draft of an economic constitution. The latest irony is that Canada, which in a sense fathered the new North America, has since shown little interest in its offspring [continue reading in new window...]