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The Conspiracy’s Kernel of Truth
By Laura Carlsen
The North American Union conspiracy theory grew out of a
kernel of truth, called the “Security and Prosperity Partnership”
(SPP). But cultivated by xenophobic fears and political opportunism,
the NAU outstripped its reality-based progenitor so fast
that it has become hard to separate the wheat from the chaff.
A little history helps.
After the North American Free Trade Agreement went into force
in 1994, the three governments began to talk about expanding the
scope of the agreement. Mexico, in particular, hoped to negotiate
a solution to the border/immigration problem. However, the
process was brought to a grinding halt by the attacks of Sept. 11th.
In a 2005 summit of then-Presidents George W. Bush, Vicente
Fox, and Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas plans for
“deep integration” between the three countries finally progressed
with the official launch of the SPP. In the post-September 11th
political context, immigration was definitively off the table and
U.S. security interests, along with corporate interests in obtaining
even more favorable terms for regional trade and investment,
dominated the agenda.
The SPP established working groups, rules, recommendations,
and agreements without Congressional oversight or public participation
in—or even knowledge of—its proceedings. It created
a “North American Competitiveness Council” that reads like a
“Who’s Who” of the largest transnationals based on the continent.
While the lack of transparency and the U.S. corporate and security-
dominated agenda are cause for great concern, they are not
evidence of a plot to move toward a North American Union. Even
a perfunctory analysis of politics in the three NAFTA countries
shows that a North American Union was, is, and always will be a
non-starter. It began as an academic proposal and never got off
the ground politically.
Among the most bizarre assumptions of NAU scare-mongers is
the contention that the SPP will threaten U.S. sovereignty and
erase borders. The idea of a regional union that effaces U.S. sovereignty
is light-years away from George W. Bush’s foreign policy of
unilateral action and disdain for international law and institutions.
On the contrary, the precepts of the Bush administration’s
foreign policy point to a return to the neoconservative belief that
the world would be a better place if the U.S. government just ran
everything.
Officially described as “... a White House-led initiative among
the United States and the two nations it borders—Canada and<
Mexico—to increase security and to enhance prosperity among
the three countries through greater cooperation,” the SPP does
pose a threat to national sovereignty, but to the sovereignty of
NAFTA’s junior partners. Canadians have been the most active in
opposing the SPP, not out of fear of a mythical NAU but because
of real threats to their ability to protect consumers’ health, natural
resources, and the environment. SPP rules would force open oil
production in environmentally sensitive areas and channel water
supplies to U.S. needs. Likewise, Mexican civic organizations have
protested SPP pressures to privatize Mexican oil and impose U.S.
security priorities on Mexican foreign policy.
As for moving toward a borderless North America, the years since
the SPP began have witnessed a hardening of the U.S.-Mexico
border never seen before in modern history. Fifteen thousand
Border Patrol agents, 6,000 members of the National Guard and
a border fence powerfully belie any suggestion that the U.S.
government aims to eliminate borders.
The NAU myth obscures the very real globalization issues raised
by NAFTA—job loss, labor insecurity, the surge in illegal immigration,
and racial tensions caused by the portrayal of immigrants
as invaders. This is convenient for both right-wing politicians and
the government and business elites they attack because real solutions
to these problems would include actions anathema to them
all, including unionization, enforcement of labor rights, comprehensive
immigration reform, and regulation of the international
market. Instead, these options are shunted aside with the redefinition
of the problem as a conspiracy of anti-American elites.
In this context, outrage over a nonexistent NAU should not be
confused with growing criticism of the Security and Prosperity
Partnership. The SPP has proceeded to change national regulations,
and create closed business committees without the
participation of labor, environmental, or citizen voices. SPP negotiations
provide a vehicle for more of the corporate integration
that has eliminated jobs, impoverished workers, and threatened
the environment across borders.
It has also served to extend the dangerous Bush security doctrine
to Canada and Mexico, despite its lack of popularity in those
countries and among the US public. It’s latest outgrowth, the
$1.4 billion-dollar Merida Initiative or Plan Mexico, would provide
money, U.S. training, and equipment to the Mexican military,
police, and intelligence services. This militarized model of
fighting real problems of drug-trafficking and human smuggling
would lead to greater violence and heightened binational tensions.
It’s time to separate out false threats from real threats. A good
place to start is to demand transparency in trinational talks and
informed public debate on regional integration.
Laura Carlsen is Director of Americas Policy Program in Mexico City.
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