CFR's Plan to Integrate the U.S., Mexico and Canada (July 2005)

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has just let the cat out of the bag about what's really behind our trade agreements and security partnerships with the other North American countries. A 59-page CFR document spells out a five-year plan for the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common "outer security perimeter."

"Community" means integrating the United States with the corruption, socialism, poverty and population of Mexico and Canada. "Common perimeter" means wide-open U.S. borders between the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

"Community" is sometimes called "space" but the CFR goal is clear: "a common economic space ... for all people in the region, a space in which trade, capital, and people flow freely." The CFR's "integrated" strategy calls for "a more open border for the movement of goods and people."

The CFR document lays "the groundwork for the freer flow of people within North America." The "common security perimeter" will require us to "harmonize visa and asylum regulations" with Mexico and Canada, "harmonize entry screening," and "fully share data about the exit and entry of foreign nationals."

This CFR document, called "Building a North American Community," asserts that George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin "committed their governments" to this goal when they met at Bush's ranch and at Waco, Texas on March 23, 2005. The three adopted the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" and assigned "working groups" to fill in the details.

It was at this same meeting, grandly called the North American summit, that President Bush pinned the epithet "vigilantes" on the volunteers guarding our border in Arizona.

A follow-up meeting was held in Ottawa on June 27, where the U.S. representative, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, told a news conference that "we want to facilitate the flow of traffic across our borders." The White House issued a statement that the Ottawa report "represents an important first step in achieving the goals of the Security and Prosperity Partnership."

The CFR document calls for creating a "North American preference" so that employers can recruit low-paid workers from anywhere in North America. No longer will illegal aliens have to be smuggled across the border; employers can openly recruit foreigners willing to work for a fraction of U.S. wages.

Just to make sure that bringing cheap labor from Mexico is an essential part of the plan, the CFR document calls for "a seamless North American market" and for "the extension of full labor mobility to Mexico."

The document's frequent references to "security" are just a cover for the real objectives. The document's "security cooperation" includes the registration of ballistics and explosives, while Canada specifically refused to cooperate with our Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).

To no one's surprise, the CFR plan calls for massive U.S. foreign aid to the other countries. The burden on the U.S. taxpayers will include so-called "multilateral development" from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, "long-term loans in pesos," and a North American Investment Fund to send U.S. private capital to Mexico.

The experience of the European Union and the World Trade Organization makes it clear that a common market requires a court system, so the CFR document calls for "a permanent tribunal for North American dispute resolution." Get ready for decisions from non-American judges who make up their rules ad hoc and probably hate the United States anyway.

The CFR document calls for allowing Mexican trucks "unlimited access" to the United States, including the hauling of local loads between U.S. cities. The CFR document calls for adopting a "tested once" principle for pharmaceuticals, by which a product tested in Mexico will automatically be considered to have met U.S. standards.

The CFR document demands that we implement "the Social Security Totalization Agreement negotiated between the United States and Mexico." That's code language for putting illegal aliens into the U.S. Social Security system, which is bound to bankrupt the system.

Here's another handout included in the plan. U.S. taxpayers are supposed to create a major fund to finance 60,000 Mexican students to study in U.S. colleges.

To ensure that the U.S. government carries out this plan so that it is "achievable" within five years, the CFR calls for supervision by a North American Advisory Council of "eminent persons from outside government . . . along the lines of the Bilderberg" conferences.

The best known Americans who participated in the CFR Task Force that wrote this document are former Massachusetts Governor William Weld and Bill Clinton's immigration chief Doris Meissner. Another participant, American University Professor Robert Pastor, presented the CFR plan at a friendly hearing of Senator Richard Lugar's Foreign Relations Committee on June 9.

Ask your Senators and Representatives which side they are on: the CFR's integrated North American Community or U.S. sovereignty guarded by our own borders.

Building a North American Community

Chair: John P. Manley, Pedro Aspe, William F. Weld
Vice Chair: Thomas P. D'Aquino, Andres Rozental, Robert A. Pastor

Task Force Members
Council on Foreign Relations Press
May 2005

175 pages
ISBN 0-87609-348-9
$15.00

English version (295K PDF)
French version (378K PDF)
Spanish version (338K PDF)

Overview

Task Force Report No. 53
Press Releases: English | French | Spanish
Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in association with the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales.
North America is vulnerable on several fronts: the region faces terrorist and criminal security threats, increased economic competition from abroad, and uneven economic development at home. In response to these challenges, a trinational, Independent Task Force on the Future of North America has developed a roadmap to promote North American security and advance the well-being of citizens of all three countries.
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.

Table of Contents
The Task Force Members
Related Project

Table of Contents

Foreword xvii
Acknowledgments xix
Task Force Report 1
Introduction 1
Recommendations 7
Making North America Safer 7
Creating a North American Economic Space 18
From Vision to Action: Institutions to Guide Trinational Relations 30
Conclusion 32
Additional and Dissenting Views 33
Task Force Members 40
Task Force Observers 47
to top

Task Force Members

PEDRO ASPE is CEO of Protego, a leading investment banking advisory firm in Mexico. Mr. Aspe was most recently the Secretary of the Treasury of Mexico (1988-1994). He has been a Professor of Economics at Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico (ITAM) and has held a number of positions in the Mexican government.

THOMAS S. AXWORTHY is the Chairman of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Queen's University. From 1981 to 1984, Dr. Axworthy was Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Trudeau. Since 2001, he has served as Chairman of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

HEIDI S. CRUZ is an energy investment banker with Merrill Lynch in Houston, Texas. She served in the Bush White House under Dr. Condoleezza Rice as the Economic Director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council, as the Director of the Latin
America Office at the U.S. Treasury Department, and as Special Assistant to Ambassador Robert B. Zoellick, U.S. Trade Representative. Prior to government service, Ms. Cruz was an investment banker with J.P. Morgan in New York City.

NELSON W. CUNNINGHAM is Managing Partner of Kissinger McLarty Associates, the international strategic advisory firm. He advised John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign on international economic and foreign policy issues, and previously served in the Clinton White House as Special Adviser to the President for Western Hemisphere Affairs.
He earlier served as a lawyer at the White House, as Senate Judiciary Committee General Counsel under then-chairman Joseph Biden, and as a federal prosecutor in New York.

THOMAS P. D'AQUINOIS is Chief Executive of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), composed of one-hundred-fifty chief executives of major enterprises in Canada. A lawyer, entrepreneur, and business strategist, he has served as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister of Canada and Adjunct Professor of Law lecturing on the law of international trade. He is the Chairman of the CCCE's North American Security and Prosperity Initiative launched in 2003.

ALFONSO DE ANGOITA is Executive Vice President and Chairman of the Finance Committee of Grupo Televisa, S.A. In addition, he has been a member of the Board of Directors and of the Executive Committee of the company since 1997, and served as Chief Financial Officer (1999-2003). Prior to joining Grupo Televisa, S.A., he was a partner of the law firm of Mijares, Angoitia, Cortes y Fuentes, S.C., in Mexico City.

LUIS DE LA CALLE PARDO is Managing Director and founding partner at De la Calle, Madrazo, Mancera, S.C. He served as Undersecretary for International Trade Negotiations in Mexico's Ministry of the Economy and negotiated several of Mexico's bilateral free trade agreements and regional and multilateral agreements with the World Trade Organization. As Trade and NAFTA Minister at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, DC, he was instrumental in crafting and implementing the North American Free Trade Agreement.

WENDY K. DOBSON is Professor and Director, Institute for International Business, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. She has served as President of the C.D. Howe Institute and Associate Deputy Minister of Finance in the government of Canada. She is Vice Chair of the Canadian Public Accountability Board and a nonexecutive director of several corporations.

RICHARD A. FALKENRATH is Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Previously, he served as Deputy Homeland Security Adviser and Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Policy and Plans at the White House's Office of Homeland Security. He is also Senior Director of the Civitas Group LLC, a strategic advisory and investment services firm serving the homeland security market, a security analyst for the Cable News Network (CNN), and a member of the Business Advisory Board of Arxan Technologies.

RAFAEL FERNANDEZ DE CASTRO is the founder and head of the Department of International Studies at the Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico (ITAM). Dr. Fernandez de Castro is also the editor of Foreign Affairs en Espanol, the sister magazine of Foreign Affairs. He also has columns in Reforma and the weekly magazine Proceso.

RAMON ALBERTO GARZA is President and General Director of Montemedia, a consulting firm specializing in media, public image, entrepreneur relations, and politics in the Americas. He was the founding Executive Editor of Reforma and President of Editorial Televisa.

GORDON D. GIFFIN is Senior Partner at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP, and served as U.S. Ambassador to Canada (1997-2001). He also spent five years as Chief Counsel and Legislative Director to U.S. Senator Sam Nunn. He currently serves on several major corporate boards, as well as the Board of Trustees of the Carter Center, in addition to his international law practice.

ALLAN GOTLIEB was Canadian Ambassador to the United States, Undersecretary of State for External Affairs, and Chairman of the Canadian Council. He is currently a senior adviser to the law firm Stikeman Elliott LLP, and Chairman of Sotheby's Canada and the Donner Foundation. He has also been a member of the board of a number of Canadian and U.S. corporations, taught at various universities in both countries, and written several books and articles on international law and international affairs.

MICHAEL HART holds the Simon Reisman Chair in trade policy in the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa. He is a former official in Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, founding director of Carleton's Centre for Trade Policy and Law, and the author of more than a dozen books
and a hundred articles on Canadian trade and foreign policy.

CARLOS HEREDIA is Senior Adviser on International Affairs to Governor Lazaro Cardenas-Batel of the State Michoacan. He has held senior positions in the Ministry of Finance and the Mexico City government. For over twenty years, he has worked with Mexican, Canadian, and U.S. nongovernmental organizations, promoting economic citizenship and participatory development. Since 2002, he has been Vice President of the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales (COMEXI).

CARLA A. HILLS is Chairman and CEO of Hills & Company, an international consulting firm providing advice to U.S. businesses on investment, trade, and risk assessment issues abroad, particularly in emerging market economies. She also serves as Vice Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations. From 1989 to 1993, Ambassador Hills served as U.S. Trade Representative in the first Bush administration,
Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice in the Ford administration.

GARY C. HUFBAUER was Director of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and holder of the Maurice Greenberg chair in 1997 and 1998. He then resumed his position as Reginald Jones Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Economics. Together with Jeffrey J. Schott, he authored a new appraisal of NAFTA, published
in the fall of 2005.

PIERRE MARC JOHNSON is a former Premier of Quebec, attorney, and physician, and has also been Counsel to the law offices of Heenan Blaikie since 1996. He was a senior member of Rene Levesque's cabinet (1976-85) and succeeded Mr. Levesque. Since 1987, Mr. Johnson has been Professor of Law at McGill University and an adviser to the United Nations in
international environmental negotiations. He has written numerous books and essays on trade and the environment, civil society participation, and globalization. He lectures in Canada, the United States, and Mexico, and serves on Canadian and European boards.

JAMES R. JONES is CEO of Manatt Jones Global Strategies, a business consulting firm. Formerly, he was U.S. Ambassador to Mexico (1993-97), President of Warnaco International, Chairman and Chief Executive Order of the American Stock Exchange, and U.S. Congressman from Oklahoma from 1973 to 87 (D-OK), where he was Chairman
of the House Budget Committee. He was Appointments Secretary (currently known as Chief of Staff) to President Lyndon B. Johnson. He is Chairman of Meridian International and the World Affairs Councils of America, and is a board member of Anheuser-Busch, Grupo Modelo, Keyspan Energy Corporation, and the Kaiser Family Foundation.

CHAPPELL H. LAWSON is a Project Director of this Task Force, and is also an Associate Professor of political science at MIT, where he holds the Class of 1954 Career Development Chair. Before joining the MIT faculty, he served as Director for Inter-American Affairs on the National Security Council.

JOHN P. MANLEY is Senior Counsel at McCarthy Tetrault LLP. He has held several senior portfolios in the Canadian government throughout his fifteen years of public service -- including industry, foreign affairs, and finance -- as well as holding the position of Deputy Prime Minister. Following 9/11, he was named Chairman of the Public Security and Anti-terrorism Cabinet Committee and, in that capacity, negotiated the Smart Border Agreement with U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security Thomas Ridge.

DAVID McD. MANN, Q.C., is Counsel at Cox Hanson O'Reilly Matheson, an Atlantic-Canadian law firm. He is the former Vice Chairman and former President and CEO of Emera Inc., a diversified investor-owned energy and services company.

DORIS M. MEISSNER is Senior Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) in Washington, DC. She has worked in the field of immigration policy and international migration for 30 years in both government and policy research organizations. She served as a senior official in the U.S. Department of Justice during the Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations, and as a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She returned to government during the Clinton years as Commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) from 1993-2000.

THOMAS M.T. NILES is Vice Chairman of the United States Council for International Business (USCIB). He retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in September 1998, following a career of more than thirty-six-years and having served as Ambassador to Canada (1985-1989), Ambassador to the European Union (1989-1991), Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Canada (1991-1993), and Ambassador to Greece (1993-1997).

BEATRIZ PAREDES serves as President of the Fundacion Colosio, A.C. Ms. Paredes is a former Ambassador of Mexico to the Republic of Cuba and former Governor of the State of Tlaxcala (1987-92). She was the first female Governor of that state and only the second woman ever to be elected Governor in Mexico. She is also a former Speaker
of the House of Representatives.

ROBERT A. PASTOR is Director of the Center for North American Studies, Vice President of International Affairs, and Professor at American University. From 1977 to 1981, he was Director of Latin American Affairs on the National Security Council. He is the author or editor of sixteen books, including Toward a North American Community: Lessons
from the Old World to the New.

ANDRES ROZENTAL is President of the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales. Mr. Rozental was a career diplomat for more than thirty years, having served his country as Ambassador to the United Kingdom (1995-1997), Deputy Foreign Minister (1988-1994), Ambassador to Sweden (1983-1988), and Permanent Representative of Mexico to the United Nations inGeneva (1982-1983). During 2001, he was Ambassador-at-Large and Special Envoy for President Vicente Fox.
LUIS RUBIO is President of the Centro de Investigacion Para el Desarrollo-Center of Research for Development (CIDAC), an independent research institution devoted to the study of economic and political policy issues. Before joining CIDAC, in the 1970s he was Planning Director of Citibank in Mexico and served as an adviser to Mexico's Secretary of the Treasury. He is also a contributing editor of Reforma.

JEFFREY J. SCOTT is Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Economics. He was formerly an official of the U.S. Treasury and U.S. trade negotiator, and has taught at Princeton and Georgetown Universities. He has authored or coauthored fifteen books on international trade, including NAFTA: Achievements and Challenges, NAFTA: An Assessment; North American Free Trade, and The Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement: The Global Impact.

WILLIAM F. WELD is Principal at Leeds Weld & Co., a private equity investment firm in New York. Previously Mr. Weld was elected to two terms as Governor of Massachusetts (1991-1997), served as Assistant U.S. Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, DC (1986-1988), and as the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts during the Reagan administration (1981-1986).

RAUL H. YZAGUIRRE currently serves as the Presidential Professor of Practice at Arizona State University (Community Development and Civil Rights). Mr. Yzaguirre, who recently retired as President and CEO of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) in Washington,
DC (1974-2005), spearheaded the council's emergence as the largest constituency-based national Hispanic organization and think tank in the United States.

FROM THIS CFR DOCUMENT (LIFTED FROM THE PDF FILE)

Increase Labor Mobility within North America

People are North America’s greatest asset. Goods and services cross
borders easily; ensuring the legal transit of North American workers
has been more difficult. Experience with the NAFTA visa system
suggests that its procedures need to be simplified ,and such visas should
be made available to a wider range of occupations and to additional
categories of individuals such as students, professors, bonafide frequent
visitors, and retirees.
To make the most of the impressive pool of skill and talent within
North America, the three countries should look beyond the NAFTA
visa system. The large volume of undocumented migrants from Mexico
within the United States is an urgent matter for those two countries
to address. A long-term goal should be to create a ‘‘North American
preference’’—new rules that would make it much easier for employees
to move and for employers to recruit across national boundaries within
the continent. This would enhance North American competitiveness, increase productivity, contribute to Mexico’s development, and address
one of the main outstanding issues on the Mexican-U.S. bilateral agenda.
Canada and the United States should consider eliminating restrictions
on labor mobility altogether and work toward solutions that, in the
long run, could enable the extension of full labor mobility to Mexico
as well.

WHAT WE SHOULD DO NOW
• Expand temporary migrant worker programs. Canada and the
United States should expand programs for temporary labor migration
from Mexico. For instance, Canada’s successful model for managing
seasonal migration in the agricultural sector should be expanded to
other sectors where Canadian producers face a shortage of workers
and Mexico may have a surplus of workers with appropriate skills.
Canadian and U.S. retirees living in Mexico should be granted
working permits in certain fields, for instance as English teachers.
• Implement the Social Security Totalization Agreement
negotiated between the United States and Mexico. This agreement would recognize payroll contributions to each other’s systems,
thus preventing double taxation.

WHAT WE SHOULD DO BY 2010
• Create a ‘‘North American preference.’’ Canada, the United
States, and Mexico should agree on streamlined immigration and
labor mobility rules that enable citizens of all three countries to
work elsewhere in North America with far fewer restrictions than
immigrants from other countries. This new system should be both
broader and simpler than the current system of NAFTA visas. Special
immigration status should be given to teachers, faculty, and students
in the region.
• Move o full labor mobility between Canada and the United
States. To make companies based in North America as competitive
as possible in the global economy, Canada and the United States
should consider eliminating all remaining barriers to the ability of
their citizens to live and work in the other country. This free flow

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