Trinational Elites Map North American Future in "NAFTA Plus"

IRC Americas ^ | August 24, 2005 | By Miguel Pickard

[Conservative Firster]

“I would like you [of the press] to understand the magnitude of what this means. It is transcendent, it’s something that goes well beyond the relationship we have had up to now.” —President Vicente Fox, regarding NAFTA Plus, onboard the presidential plane returning to Mexico from George W. Bush’s Crawford ranch, March 2005.

NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) has been in effect almost 12 years and a new stage, NAFTA Plus, is in the works, referred to as “deep integration,” particularly in Canada. The elites of the three NAFTA countries (Canada, the United States, and Mexico) have been aggressively moving forward to build a new political and economic entity. A “trinational merger” is underway that leaps beyond the single market that NAFTA envisioned and, in many ways, would constitute a single state, called simply, “North America.”

Note: long article

[Moral Hazard]

Looks like I need to be investing in aluminum and head wear companies.

[itsahoot]

Looks like I need to be investing in aluminum and head wear companies.

Maybe you should just take a little NoDoze?

[henderson field]

And the specific benefits of NAFTA have been...

[vrwc0915]

ping for later

[vrwc0915]

"And the specific benefits of NAFTA have been..."
Providing the corpitists (Socialists that like making profits off of near slave labor) with an endless pool of unskilled illegal labor

[1rudeboy]

To think that all this time I thought of myself as a globalist, only to find out that I am a member of the Trinational Elite. Bummer.

[A. Pole]

I am a member of the Trinational Elite.

I doubt it.

[DumpsterDiver]

Thanks for posting this. I started reading this earlier today, but haven't had the time to finish it yet. It explains a lot about what is going on with regards to the border.

[DumpsterDiver]

ping

[hedgetrimmer]

You all might find this one interesting....

[hedgetrimmer]

Yet the successful integration of an impoverished Mexico into a North American space depends—according to Pastor—on the transfer of exorbitant amounts of cash, principally from the United States, similar to the transfers that Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Ireland received from the European Union when they joined.

"Free trade" is an enormous wealth redistribution system that transfers money out of the United States to the third world.

[DumpsterDiver]

This part is interesting:

In Mexico, another call for more porous borders was unfolding, which tended to converge with Canada's. Within months of his inauguration in December 2000, President Vicente Fox launched the idea of going beyond NAFTA's economic integration. Counseled by his foreign relations secretary Jorge G. Castañeda (in turn, in constant dialogue with Pastor), Fox proposed Mexico's version of NAFTA Plus, with a limited but important objective for Mexico. NAFTA had boosted the flow of goods, services, and capital in the trinational area but, from Mexico's perspective, it had omitted a key factor: its abundant, poorly-paid, and unemployed labor force. Fox proposed labor mobility for Mexicans within a greater "North America," in exchange for certain concessions to the United States.

During NAFTA negotiations in the early 90s, the United States had flatly refused to consider the idea of greater integration of the labor markets. Such a scenario would have been violently rejected by certain influential (and racist) sectors of public opinion, and NAFTA would have been a nonstarter.

In 2001, seven years into NAFTA, Fox took bold proposals to his initial meetings with George W. Bush and laid them out with an aplomb that left Washington observers stunned. The New York Times commented, after one visit by Fox to Washington, "rarely has a foreign leader shown up on the South Lawn of the White House and declared that he and the president of the United States must remake the fundamental rules that have governed his country's uneasy relationship with the United States -- and get it done in the next four months."

Theoretically, at least, Fox was right. In totally open markets, labor should enjoy the same freedom of movement that NAFTA had given capital. Mexico's "competitive advantage" is precisely its abundant labor force, but it was facing increasingly formidable barriers to reaching job vacancies in the United States. Perhaps not by accident, NAFTA's start in 1994 coincided with the first U.S. Border Patrol militarized "operations" to seal the border with Mexico. The blatant discrimination of Mexico's "competitive advantage" had to be eliminated, Fox insisted. The New York Times article insinuates that Bush understood and accepted Fox's daring proposals ("endorsing his principles," the Times says), although dissenting with him over the timeframe and the political feasibility of pushing them forward.

Few U.S. policymakers perceived a contradiction between "operations" on the U.S. side to seal the border and an acceptance by Bush to review migratory policy options. On the one hand, the status quo was not working. Border Patrol "operations" had not detained Mexican migration -- in fact it had tripled during the NAFTA years. Still, border crossings had become more dangerous, leading to the tragic death of 4,000 migrants in 10 years. In addition, there were American companies that were begging for cheap, non-unionized workers to fill the "4-D" jobs (dangerous, dirty, dull, domestic) that Americans eschew. And finally both leaders, new to their posts at the time, were disposed to break with policies from previous administrations.

It is quite likely that Fox arrived in Washington ready for tradeoffs. In exchange for U.S. acceptance of more Mexican workers, Mexico would "seal" its own southern border, to detain and deport migrants from other regions, especially Central Americans, whose presence in the United States had skyrocketed since Hurricane Mitch devastated the region in 1998.

In fact, this measure was implemented in July 2001 by Plan Sur (South Plan), whereby Mexico militarized its border with Guatemala and Belize, and the narrow Isthmus of Tehuantepec through which all Central American migrants had to traverse. Fox had asked for a special and privileged treatment for Mexicans, in exchange for hunting down migrants from third countries before they could make their way to the U.S. border. The measure had the effect of "displacing" tasks of the U.S. southern border to southern Mexico.

Fox's government formalized the idea of creating an exclusive and excluding "North America space," to which Mexico would gain entry, in essence by turning its back on Latin America. Mexico's northward-looking bias became explicit with Fox, but it merely culminated a policy that began during the administration of Mexico's first president of unquestionable neoliberal extraction, Miguel de la Madrid (1982-1988).

Fox likely called on Bush with more than Plan Sur to offer -- possibly the privatization of PEMEX (the state oil company) or the Federal Electricity Commission. Although efforts to privatize these two state-run companies have stalled in the legislature, Fox has not flinched from putting Mexico's oil at the service of American interests, notably by upping exports to the United States in the weeks previous to the invasion of Iraq.

In any event, the Fox-Bush summit took place in a radically different historic moment. The presidents met in Washington on September 5, 2001, six days before 9/11. Since then the Fox government has retreated to Mexico's traditional role vis-à-vis its neighbor, i.e., with few exceptions, letting the United States establish the agenda, conditions, and timeframes.

In the new post-9/11 environment, Fox's bold migratory and integrationist proposals were abruptly shelved by the Bush administration. The ensuing retreat towards a passive role for Mexican foreign policy, particularly regarding the only important foreign interlocutor for Mexico, contributed to Castañeda's resignation in January 2003.

snip

[hedgetrimmer]

This broadcast is happenging right now, if you can listen on the internet...

1st Hour- Guest: Dr. Steven Yates

Professor of Philosophy Steven Yates informs as to the real effect and purpose of global trade agreements including the recently enacted Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Dr Yates will explain how these phony “free trade’ agreements are designed to undermine national sovereignty, establish regionalism, feed the global governance monster and destroy the vision of the American experience.

9pm - 10pm Pacific

2nd Hour – Dr. David Abbott



British citizen and part time US resident David Abbott, describes how England is losing control over its own governance. England is quickly becoming regionalized under European Union authority. In the process Britons are losing control over land use decisions and domestic law making. Learn the history of how the European Union has used trade policy to destroy national sovereignty. This interview will assist in understanding the real purpose behind CAFTA, FTAA and the American process of regionalization.

http://www.freedom21santacruz.net/site/radio/

[Iscool]

I would not say that the Iraq war was created as a distraction to the American public for the underhandedness that is taking place in Washington, but it has certainly turned out to be a distraction...

I assume opening our borders and creating a North American State falls outside the scope of limitations put in place by our Constitution...

The Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of the Fed Gov are clearly united in this endeavor, including the muriad of alphabet police agencies and the numerous other appointed agencies...

And yet we have good, conservative Americans down in Texas at Bush's driveway hootin' and hollerin' in support for him...AND they know about this scheme...

[lonewacko_dot_com]

Here's a shorter article:

http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2005/july05/05-07-13.html

No tin foil needed: they've already announced their plans.

[endthematrix]

Council Joins Leading Canadians and Mexicans to Launch Independent Task Force on the Future of North America
http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=7454

Task Force calls for North American bloc by 2010
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050314-060907-1435r.htm

[Tench_Coxe]

The proof of this would be in a push for firearms restrictions on American citizens.

[endthematrix]

The expulsion of ardent nationalists (dictators) who are against global integration is part of the "plan."

"I would not say that the Iraq war was created as a distraction to the American public for the underhandedness that is taking place in Washington, but it has certainly turned out to be a distraction..."

Americans still don't understand the build-up to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the US leadership that understood Saddam's intentions and why (if weren't against it) we "failed" to see troop formations on the border. Schools only teach post Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Gulf War.