USMCA Revision: North America on the Edge

As the 2026 review of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) approaches, the future of North American integration hangs in the balance. This webinar brings together experts from industry and academia to discuss what’s at stake in the renegotiation process. Join us for an in-depth conversation on how each country is positioning itself and what the next phase of the North American partnership might look like.

Speakers

Meredith Lilly, Carleton University

Beatriz Leycegui, SAI Law & Economics

Francisco N. González, National Auto Parts Industry Association

Shannon K. O'Neil, Council on Foreign Relations

Moderators

Rafael Fernández de Castro, UC San Diego

Héctor Cárdenas, COMEXI

About the Speakers

Meredith Lilly, Ph.D., is a full Professor and Simon Reisman Chair in International Economic Policy at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. Her research focuses on North American trade relations, Canada’s trade diversification strategy, economic sanctions, and the use of research evidence in policy making. Prior to her appointment at Carleton, she served as Foreign Affairs and International Trade Advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. She was previously appointed at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, and has worked in policy roles in several Canadian government departments.  She engages regularly with foreign governments and diplomats, and is a frequent media commentator on North American trade issues.
She is a member of CD Howe Institute’s International Economic Policy Council, a non-resident scholar at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, an Advisory Board member for the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, and serves as the Academic Partner for Canada’s delegation to the North American Forum.

Beatriz Leycegui has thirty years of professional experience in foreign trade, public policies and regulatory issues, acquired in the public, private and academic spheres.

In 2013, she rejoined SAI Law and Economics as a partner, heading the Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment and Regulatory Practice and Public Policy areas, a responsibility she had held from 1999 to 2006.


She was Undersecretary of Foreign Trade at the Ministry of Economy from 2006 to 2011. She served as Legal Director at the Undersecretariat of International Trade Negotiations during the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, between 1990 and 1992.


Her experience in public administration includes five years of service in the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from 1983 to 1988. She was a researcher at Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México from 2011 to 2012 and a professor at that institution between 1993 and 1999. She has published various articles and coordinated several works, including the book “Reflections on Mexico’s International Trade Policy 2006-2012”.

 She graduated from the Escuela Libre de Derecho and obtained a Master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University in New York.



Beatriz is part of the list of arbitrators of the World Trade Organization, and has served as a panelist. She is a founding member of the Mexican Council on International Affairs and a Fellow of the CD Howe Institute in Canada.

Shannon K. O'Neil is senior vice president, director of studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg chair at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where she oversees the work of the more than six dozen fellows in the David Rockefeller Studies Program as well as CFR’s fourteen fellowship programs. She is a leading authority on global trade, supply chains, Mexico, and Latin America.
Dr. O’Neil is the author of The Globalization Myth: Why Regions Matter, which chronicles the rise of three main global manufacturing and supply chain hubs and what they mean for U.S. economic competitiveness. She also wrote Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead, which analyzes the political, economic, and social transformations Mexico has undergone over the last three decades and why they matter for the United States. She is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, and a frequent guest on national broadcast news and radio programs. Dr. O’Neil has often testified before Congress, and regularly speaks at global academic, business, and policy conferences.

Dr. O’Neil has lived and worked in Mexico and Argentina. She was a Fulbright scholar and a Justice, Welfare, and Economics fellow at Harvard University, and has taught Latin American politics at Columbia University. Before turning to policy, Dr. O'Neil worked in the private sector as an equity analyst at Indosuez Capital and Credit Lyonnais Securities. She holds a BA from Yale University, an MA in international relations from Yale University, and a PhD in government from Harvard University. She is the chair of the board of directors of the Tinker Foundation. 

Francisco N. González Díaz has been representing the interests of more than 700 auto parts companies in Mexico since he was elected executive president of the National Auto Parts Industry Association (INA) in January 2022. For the last 20 years, he has been promoting Mexico and its industries. The former director-general of Mexico’s foreign-trade bank Bancomext and foreign-trade promotion agency ProMéxico, he also served as Mexican ambassador to Germany. In 2014, he received a Recognition of Professional Merit from ITAM for his outstanding professional career. He continues to play an active role as a businessman in the country’s health, foreign-trade, tourism, banking and finance sectors. Mr. González holds a BAA from ITAM and an MBA from ITESM.

This event is presented in collaboration with the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, UC San Diego (USMEX) and the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales (COMEXI)