.... apparently to waste JimRob's bandwidth ... but don't tell anyone - especially not 'them'.
Posted on 10/07/2006 3:56:30 AM PDT by Man50D
WASHINGTON – There are mixed signals coming from Mexico about the fate of a proposed mega-port in Baja California for mainly Chinese goods that would be shipped on rail lines and "NAFTA superhighways" running through the U.S. to Canada.
The port at Punta Colonet, planned as a major container facility to transfer Asian goods into America's heartland, got at least a temporary setback when a Mexican businessman announced a competing project in which he was seeking to secure mineral rights in the area.
Gabriel Chavez, originally one of the principal movers behind the port plan, now says there are significant amounts of titanium and iron to be mined offshore – a project he considers more important than the port.
Mexican ports czar Cesar Patricio Reyes placed a moratorium on further work toward port planning for three or four months while the government explores ways to make everyone happy.
It is no secret the Mexican government is still committed to the port plan. A map from the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies shows the proposed goods route into a North American community.
According to transportation officials in Arizona, one of the sites considered for a rail line from Punta Colonet, the Mexican government has released an official directive stating its intention to create a new marine facility there -- about 150 miles south of the U.S. border.
The port at Punta Colonet, when completed, is expected to rival the biggest West Coast ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach, both heavily congested now.
Bringing goods into a Mexican port would mean lower costs for foreign shippers because of cheaper labor and less restrictive environmental regulations.
Hutchison Ports Mexico, a subsidiary of the Chinese company Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., is keeping reports about progress on the venture close to the vest.
Only recently has the port become a source of controversy in the U.S. as Americans begin questioning highway and rail projects criss-crossing the country – many of which are designed to carry product from Mexico to the U.S. and Canada on the so-called "NAFTA superhighways."
Resentment is building inside the U.S. because of what appear to be secretive plans made outside normal government policymaking channels about immigration, border policies, transportation and integration of the three North American nations.
Transportation Secretary Maria Cino has promised to release plans within months for a one-year, NAFTA pilot program permitting Mexican truckers beyond the limited commercial zone to which they are currently restricted.
The program will likely involve about 100 Mexican trucking companies, the Department of Transportation says.
Under the North American Free Trade Agreement – NAFTA – the borders were to open partially to truckers from both countries in 1995. Full access was promised by 2000. Because of the restrictions on Mexican trucks, the Mexican government has imposed limits on U.S. truckers.
The U.S. restrictions were placed by the Clinton administration in response to demands from the Teamsters union, which said Mexican trucks posed safety and environmental risks. Currently, the U.S. permits Mexican truckers only in commercial zones close to the border that extend no further than 20 miles from Mexico.
While the American Trucking Association supports opening the border, other unions have joined in opposition with the Teamsters. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association came out this month in opposition to any Mexican truck pilot program.
Todd Spencer, the association's executive vice president, said the program would jeopardize safety on U.S. roads and would lead to an influx of cheap Mexican labor.
"A move by the U.S. Department of Transportation to open U.S. roadways to Mexican trucks puts the interest of foreign trade and cheap labor ahead of everything else, including highway safety, homeland security and the well being of hardworking Americans," Spencer said.
In a letter to the Interstate Trade Commission, Spencer wrote: "The net effect of admission of Mexican trucks into the U.S. marketplace would undoubtedly be negative. The supposed benefits to consumers from speculative reductions in shipping rates would be offset by the societal costs that are difficult to measure, but are easy to identify."
Raising more suspicions that such plans are leading to a future integration of the U.S., Canada and Mexico, a high-level, top-secret meeting of the North American Forum took place this month in Banff – with topics ranging from "A Vision for North America," "Opportunities for Security Cooperation" and "Demographic and Social Dimensions of North American Integration."
Despite "confirmed" participants including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Central Intelligence Agency Director R. James Woolsey, former Immigration and Naturalization Services Director Doris Meissner, North American Union guru Robert Pastor, former Defense Secretary William Perry, former Energy Secretary and Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and top officials of both Mexico and Canada, there has been no press coverage of the event. The only media member scheduled to appear at the event, according to documents obtained by WND, was the Wall Street Journal's Mary Anastasia O'Grady.
The event was organized by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Canada West Foundation, an Alberta think-tank that promotes closer economic integration with the United States.
The Canadian event is just the latest of a series of meetings, policy papers and directives that have citizens, officials and members of the media wondering whether these efforts represent some sort of coordinated effort to implement a "merger" some have characterized as "NAFTA on steroids."
Last week, government documents released by a Freedom of Information Act request revealed the Bush administration is running what some observers see as a "shadow government" with Mexico and Canada in which the U.S. is crafting a broad range of policy in conjunction with its neighbors to the north and south.
Well, if you don't mind I will continue, since it really doesn't concern me WHO laughs at me. I have no idea who Global Research is, nor have I come across the name in any of the research I've done on any of the NAU/SPP threads, at least not that I can remember.
But since you've posted there is a connection, and that Global Research is responsible as the original source of all subsequent information, please provide the links. TIA
Don't stay there to long because it will give you the heebie jeebies and make you have nighmares or wet the bed. Plus the CIA probably monitors who browses there.
http://www.teamliberty.net/id303.html
September 27, 2006 – The secretive 2006 North American Forum was held in Banff, Alberta, Canada on September 12-14, 2006. The forum was part of a series of secret meetings attended by political and business leaders from Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The most recent, previous secret meeting in the series was held in October 2005 in Sonoma, California.
These closed to the media and the public, North American Forums are continuations of a long-standing effort to undermine the sovereignty of the United States. The perpetrators are globalists and elitists. They can be found commiserating with each other at the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. Although they use different language to conceal their agenda, the ultimate goal is to create a super-state, with its own body of governance that will rule over the U.S. Congress, as well as state and local governments. To accomplish this objective, the perpetrators and infiltrators have meticulous worked for decades in the United States to undermine, through trickery and deception, the power of the U.S. Congress. The goal has always been to ensure the election of Presidents and / or Vice-Presidents, regardless of political party affiliation, that are members or co-conspirators of the Trilateral Commission"........
.........."On September 26, 2006 the Muckraker Report spoke with Hollen Wheeler, Department of Defense Director of Public Affairs, and confirmed that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was indeed invited and scheduled to participate in the 2006 North American Forum in Banff, Alberta, Canada on September 12-14, 2006. But according to Wheeler, Rumsfeld was unable to attend, so he sent the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, in his stead.".................
..........."General Peter Pace might not realize that he participated in a conspiratorial forum that aims to dissolve the sovereignty of the United States of America. If Pace did understand the ultimate purpose of the forum, then he has compromised his oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. He also might have violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice, behavior unbecoming of a United States Marine Corps Officer, by attending a secret meeting meant to further the process of bypassing the people’s representative government, the U.S. Congress, in order to:
· Adopt a common external tariff for the three former sovereign nations of Canada, Mexico, and the United States
· Adopt a North American approach to regulation which will supercede the U.S. Congress
· Secure the perimeters of the new union by 2010 rather than the borders between the former nations
· Steal tax dollars – taxation without representation – by establishing a North American investment fund for infrastructure and human capital
· Establish a permanent tribunal – a court system that will supercede the U.S. court system and the Supreme Court – for dispute resolution
· Hold annual summits that will bring the figure heads-of-state together for the sake of convincing the people of the former nations that their nations are still sovereign when they will be in name only. This recommendation is clear evidence that a great fraud and treasonous act against the 440 million people that live in Canada, Mexico, and the United States is well underway
· Create a non-elected, non-representative North American Advisory Council
· Create a non-elected, non-representative Inter-Parliamentary Group"
YIKES!
Lazy or Liar?
Aww Jeez, not this topic again....
Don't like the topic, there are plenty of other threads
Really?
Thanks Kim.
Forgive her, brother, she knows not what she posts.
Oooh, since you're cutting and pasting, can you post the colorful maps?
It wouldn't be an NAU thread without the colorful maps!
*yawn*
LOL!
.... apparently to waste JimRob's bandwidth ... but don't tell anyone - especially not 'them'.
ROFLOL!
Happy Thanksgiving Buddy!
The common tariff promotes a market economy and doesn't distort the overall trnsportation grid.
The North American approach to regulation/supercedes the US Congress. Supercedes regulatory takings and is already part of NAFTA and is found mainly in Chapter 11 but also some in 19. This is found in all FTAs. The left wing sees this as the rightwing conspiricy to "Roll back the New Deal". To really understand this you need to chase down Greider's 2001 article in Nation Magazine titled "The Right and US Trade Law: Invalidating the 20th Century".
Secure the perimeters by 2010. Exactly, that is why it is called North America Perimeter Security. It gives the US authority to implement security over what enters Mexico and Canada. It is also called "pushing out the border". If we can control that, we have better control over what enters the US from those two countries. Not to mention the fact that with US personel operating inside of Mexico, we will have better control over drugs and illegals. Have a look at the House border enforcement bill and you will see the language on cross border enforcement.
North American Investment Fund. This already exists, tho it is underfunded. Be aware that it also benefits those inside the US. For example: the ditches in the Rio Grande Project were converted to concrete with this money. These type of funds also exist on a world wide basis. It is an excellant way of attaching strings to foreign aid which has been a US policy since the end of the Cold War.
Establish a permenant tribunal. First you need to consider my reply above on the North American approach to regulation. Also, you have to consider how FTAs have evolved since NAFTA. Back then, it was not envisioned that the FTAs would take off like they have. This is a result of the WTO having become mired down in the inability of all 180 nations being able to come down to an agreement. Faced with that situation, nations around the world are turning to bilateral and regional FTAs to promote trade. Not just the US. Not only does this get around the WTO's inability to function, it also acts a leverage to force individual members of the WTO and blocs in the WTO back to the table. So as the FTAs proliferate, so do the dispute settlement mechanisms and you end up with many tribunals reaching decisions that have been previously made by a different tribunals. Faced with this, it was decided that there needed to be a central accumulation of decisions which would be used to set precedents and eventually estabish a body of law which all participants could use. For more on this search Investor-State Trade Agreements or Investor-State Law.
Hold annual summits. They been having these meetings all along, they just decided to have them on regular intervals.
Inter-parliamentory group. There are some fringe lefties who advocate this but it is not part of the deal. Their basis for this is legal, environmental, and social justice. While FTA participants have to tip their hat to them, the whole point of FTAs is a means of circumventing those types of regulatory law/takings.
And I don't understand why you're so quick to critize the positions of those on the left. Afterall, how much further left can Bush get than being on the same page with Kennedy?
Even if you consider the possibilty that one or two of them were conservatives in the American sense, the image of them protesting alongside the member of the Green Party quoted in the article is hilarious.
LOL
I kinda doubt it.
They were probably all nutcases of one type or another.
Too bad the lifeflight or highway helicopters weren't buzzing around, THAT might've been interesting :)
No surprise there. The difference being, when Bush gets on board with Kennedy, he is (mostly) criticized here. When the moonbat Left gets on board (again, here) with the globophobes (for lack of a better term), it's nothing but "why are you so quick to criticize, why don't you address the points that are made, blah blah blah.
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