Kristin Kent Spanos and Nicholas Saliba at the George W. Bush Presidential Center:
As governments, businesses, and think tanks review the efficiency and resiliency of North American supply chains—many impacted by COVID-19— The George W. Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative’s Global Competitiveness Scorecard can be utilized as a tool for benchmarking and setting the next generation of aspirational goals for North American integration. A starting point is to take a look at North America’s competitiveness, which shows a slight decline in the past ten years. This trend should be reversed for the region to continue leading globally. The graph below demonstrates how North America’s score on the Scorecard’s sub-indices has changed since 2009. As the graph illustrates, North America’s decline in the business environment has been largely driven by regulatory impediments and rising costs of compliance—this score is calculated by the ease of starting a business, regulatory environment, infrastructure, and innovation. The U.S. score has declined over the past few years in part because regulations on hiring foreign labor have become more restrictive. Adopting a modern immigration system will strengthen the economic competitiveness of the United States, and North America.