This article provides more details:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/osullivan/cst-edt-osul14.html
[snip]
".......Here's a quick quiz for foreign policy buffs: (1) Who was the first
foreign leader George W. Bush journeyed to meet on becoming president?
(2) Which foreign country did Bush visit on his first trip abroad as
president? (3) What was the first major international agreement he
signed?
The answers are (1) President Vicente Fox of Mexico at his ranch in Texas, shortly before visiting (2) Canada where he signed (3) the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA).
These choices were very far from accidental. In those innocent days before 9/11, when geopolitics
was passe and geo-economics all the rage, Bush entered office
believing that his main foreign policy task would be to unite the
Western hemisphere economically and politically in a world of
competing trade blocs.
Under U.S. leadership, the FTAA would gradually develop into an
American version of the European Union resting on free trade, free
capital movement and market-friendly capitalist reforms hroughout the Americas.
In return, the United States would pay what seemed a small price -- making immigration from Latin America much easier, legalizing
the mainly Mexican "illegals" already here." {SNIP}
Read that again:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/osullivan/cst-edt-osul14.html
"These choices were very far from accidental. In those innocent days before 9/11, when geopolitics was passe and geo-economics all the rage, Bush entered office believing that his main foreign policy task would be to unite the western hemisphere economically and politically in a world of competing trade blocs.
Under U.S. leadership, the FTAA would gradually develop into an American version of the European Union resting on free trade, free capital movement and market-friendly capitalist reforms hroughout the Americas.
In return, the United States would pay what seemed a small price -- making immigration from Latin America much easier, legalizing the mainly Mexican "illegals" already here."