there is one cabal of string-pullers behind the NAU, rather than a loose, amorphous movement of like-minded people. Or whether the NAU project seriously proposes a political union. According to www.stopthenorthamericanunion.com:
The formation of the European Union (EU) is the “blueprint” being used to construct the North American Union (NAU). In multiple acts of treason, our government is illegally creating the NAU by using secret meetings and deceptive double-speak to hide their “INCREMENTAL STEALTH”. They are making MASSIVE changes to our bureaucratic-administrative-regulatory laws by calling them “HARMONIZATIONS”. What they are doing is rewriting our legal regulatory law to the benefit of, by, and for the corporate elite, which is… classic fascism.
On the other hand, the CFR’s “Building a North American Community” monograph actually rules out any sort of EU lash-up:
North America is different from other regions of the world and must find its own cooperative route forward. A new North American community should rely more on the market and less on bureaucracy, more on pragmatic solutions to shared problems than on grand schemes of confederation or union, such as those in Europe. We must maintain respect for each other’s national sovereignty.
Of course, those clever policy wonks in the CFR could be dealing a double bluff. Pretending not to want something but organizing for it behind doors anyway…
Jerome Corsi,
Herbert Grubel,
DOCUMENT: COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, PRESS RELEASE “TASK FORCE URGES MEASURES TO STRENGTHEN NORTH AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS, EXPAND TRADE, ENSURE BORDER SECURITY”.
When the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States met in Texas recently they underscored the deep ties and shared principles of the three countries. The Council-sponsored Task Force applauds the announced “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,” but proposes a more ambitious vision of a new community by 2010 and specific recommendations on how to achieve it.
Pointing to increased competition from the European Union and rising economic powers such as India and China in the eleven years since NAFTA took effect, co-chair Pedro C. Aspe, former Finance Minister of Mexico, said, “We need a vision for North America to address the new challenges.” The Task Force establishes a blueprint for a powerhouse North American trading area that allows for the seamless movement of goods, increased labor mobility, and energy security.
“We are asking the leaders of the United States, Mexico, and Canada to be bold and adopt a vision of the future that is bigger than, and beyond, the immediate problems of the present,” said co-chair John P. Manley, Former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. “They could be the architects of a new community of North America, not mere custodians of the status quo.”
At a time of political transition in Canada and Mexico, the Task Force proposes new ideas to cope with continental challenges that should be the focus of debate in those two countries as well as the United States. To ensure a free, secure, just, and prosperous North America, the Task Force proposes a number of specific measures:
Make North America safer:
• Establish a common security perimeter by 2010.
• Develop a North American Border Pass with biometric identifiers.
• Develop a unified border action plan and expand border customs facilities.
Create a single economic space:
• Adopt a common external tariff.
• Allow for the seamless movement of goods within North America.
• Move to full labor mobility between Canada and the U.S.
• Develop a North American energy strategy that gives greater emphasis to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases—a regional alternative to Kyoto.
• Review those sectors of NAFTA that were excluded.
• Develop and implement a North American regulatory plan that would include “open skies and open roads” and a unified approach for protecting consumers on food, health, and the environment.
• Expand temporary worker programs and create a “North American preference” for immigration for citizens of North America.
Spread benefits more evenly:
• Establish a North American Investment Fund to build infrastructure to connect Mexico’s poorer regions in the south to the market towards the north.
• Restructure and reform Mexico’s public finances.
• Fully develop Mexican energy resources to make greater use of international technology and capital.
Institutionalize the partnership:
• Establish a permanent tribunal for trade and investment disputes.
• Convene an annual North American summit meeting.
• Establish a Tri-national Competition Commission to develop a common approach to trade remedies.
• Expand scholarships to study in the three countries and develop a network of Centers for North American Studies.
Co-chair William F. Weld, former Governor of Massachusetts and U.S. Assistant Attorney General, said, “We are three liberal democracies; we are adjacent; we are already intertwined economically; we have a great deal in common historically; culturally, we have a lot to learn from one another.”
Organized in association with the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, the Task Force includes prominent former officials, businessmen, and academic experts from all three countries. A Chairmen’s Statement was released in March in advance of the trinational summit; the full report represents the consensus of the entire Task Force membership and leadership.
Chief Executive of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives Thomas d’Aquino, President of the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales Andres Rozental, and Director of the Center for North American Studies at American University Robert A. Pastor serve as vice chairs. Chappell H. Lawson, Associate Professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is director.
Founded in 1921, the Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, national membership organization and a nonpartisan center for scholars dedicated to producing and disseminating ideas so that individual and corporate members, as well as policymakers, journalists, students, and interested citizens in the United States and other countries, can better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other governments.
The Mexican Council on Foreign Relations (COMEXI) is the only multi-disciplinary
