Trans-Pacific Partnership destroys U.S. sovereignty

The Next Phase of North American Integration. NAFTA to be Swallowed up by the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)?

Posted on August 2, 2014 Written by Dana Gabriel, Global Research

In prepa­ra­tion for the upcom­ing North Amer­i­can Lead­ers Sum­mit which (was) held in Toluca, Mex­ico on Feb­ru­ary 19, U.S. Sec­re­tary of State John Kerry … held a meet­ing with his Cana­dian and Mex­i­can coun­ter­parts. Over the last num­ber of years, not as much atten­tion has been given to the tri­lat­eral rela­tion­ship. Instead, the U.S. has essen­tially pur­sued a dual-bilateral approach with both Canada and Mex­ico on key issues includ­ing bor­der and con­ti­nen­tal perime­ter secu­rity, as well as reg­u­la­tory and energy coop­er­a­tion. On the heels of its 20th anniver­sary, there once again appears to be renewed inter­est in broad­en­ing and deep­en­ing the NAFTA part­ner­ship as part of the next phase of North Amer­i­can integration.

On Jan­u­ary 17, U.S. Sec­re­tary of State John Kerry hosted the North Amer­i­can Min­is­te­r­ial with Cana­dian For­eign Min­is­ter John Baird and Mex­i­can For­eign Sec­re­tary Jose Anto­nio Meade. The dis­cus­sions cen­tered around top­ics such as reg­u­la­tory, energy and trade rela­tions, along with bor­der infra­struc­ture and man­age­ment. The meet­ing was used to lay the ground­work for next month’s North Amer­i­can Lead­ers Sum­mit which will include the par­tic­i­pa­tion of U.S. Pres­i­dent Barack Obama, Cana­dian Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harper and Mex­i­can Pres­i­dent Enrique Pena Nieto.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence, a reporter asked about reopen­ing NAFTA in order to update it. Sec­re­tary Kerry answered, “the TPP, is a very crit­i­cal com­po­nent of sort of mov­ing to the next tier, post-NAFTA. So I don’t think you have to open up NAFTA, per se, in order to achieve what we’re try­ing to achieve.” Min­is­ter Baird added, “we believe that NAFTA’s been an unqual­i­fied suc­cess, the Trans-Pacific Part­ner­ship (TPP) trade nego­ti­a­tions, which all three of us are in, offer us the oppor­tu­nity to strengthen the tri­lat­eral part­ner­ship.” Sec­re­tary Meade also chimed in, “We do not think it is nec­es­sary to reopen NAFTA, but we think we have to build on it to con­struct and revi­tal­ize the idea of a dynamic North America.”

In Decem­ber 2013, the Miami Her­ald reported that the Obama admin­is­tra­tion, “is explor­ing a regional trade plan for the Amer­i­cas that would be the most ambi­tious hemi­spheric ini­tia­tive in years.” It went on to say that Sec­re­tary of State John Kerry, “would like to first seek an agree­ment to deepen the exist­ing North Amer­i­can Free Trade Agree­ment (NAFTA) with Mex­ico and Canada, and to expand it after­ward to the rest of Latin Amer­ica.” Accord­ing to some of Kerry’s top aides, “the plan to relaunch NAFTA could come as early as Feb­ru­ary, when Pres­i­dent Barack Obama is sched­uled to meet with his Mex­i­can and Cana­dian coun­ter­parts at a North Amer­i­can Lead­ers’ Sum­mit in Mex­ico.” The recent arti­cle, U.S. lays out goals for NAFTA cau­tioned that, “the shared goal of a NAFTA 2.0 that wins fresh, sus­tain­able gains for Canada, Mex­ico and the U.S., the Amer­i­cans warn, is unlikely to come in a sin­gle, dra­matic and eas­ily digestible sound byte.” It fur­ther noted that, “Instead, the Amer­i­cans are urg­ing a more real­is­tic approach aimed at reviv­ing tri­lat­eral momen­tum, with a dogged diplo­matic effort that aggres­sively fine-tunes, stream­lines and expands the trade pact.”

Last year, busi­ness lead­ers from across North Amer­ica released a set of pol­icy rec­om­men­da­tions designed to increase con­ti­nen­tal eco­nomic inte­gra­tion and com­pet­i­tive­ness. In a let­ter issued to Pres­i­dent Barack Obama, Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harper and Pres­i­dent Enrique Pena Nieto, the Busi­ness Round­table, the Cana­dian Coun­cil of Chief Exec­u­tives and the Con­sejo Mex­i­cano de Hom­bres de Nego­cios called for greater tri­lat­eral gov­ern­ment action in the areas of intel­li­gent bor­der sys­tems, reg­u­la­tory stan­dards and prac­tices, as well as North Amer­i­can energy secu­rity and sus­tain­abil­ity. The busi­ness orga­ni­za­tions explained that, “More can and should be done to pro­mote reg­u­la­tory coop­er­a­tion between our three coun­tries, to facil­i­tate the legit­i­mate move­ment of peo­ple, goods and ser­vices.” They empha­sized that the time to act was now and that their spe­cific pro­pos­als would, “help deepen our eco­nomic ties, strengthen the inter­na­tional com­pet­i­tive­ness of Cana­dian, Mex­i­can, and U.S. com­pa­nies and their work­ers, and real­ize North Amer­i­can energy self-reliance.” Their goal is to cre­ate a seam­less North Amer­i­can market.

At the third annual North Amer­i­can Com­pet­i­tive­ness and Inno­va­tion Con­fer­ence in Octo­ber 2013, gov­ern­ment offi­cials, trade experts and lead­ers rep­re­sent­ing the pri­vate and aca­d­e­mic sec­tors from all three coun­tries gath­ered to dis­cuss strate­gies aimed at boost­ing NAFTA ties. Among the atten­dees were U.S. Sec­re­tary of Com­merce Penny Pritzker, Cana­dian Min­is­ter of Inter­na­tional Trade Edward Fast, and Mex­i­can Sec­re­tary of Econ­omy Ilde­fonso Gua­jardo. In a joint state­ment, they agreed to strengthen their trade and eco­nomic rela­tion­ship. The min­is­ters, “com­mit­ted to craft­ing a roadmap that both pro­motes pros­per­ity across the NAFTA region for the next 20 years and main­tains our posi­tion as the most com­pet­i­tive region in the world.” They also pledged to enhance, “reg­u­la­tory coop­er­a­tion, and coor­di­nated efforts to facil­i­tate increased trade through many ini­tia­tives, includ­ing the ongo­ing Trans-Pacific Part­ner­ship (TPP) nego­ti­a­tions.” With NAFTA as the foun­da­tion, the U.S., Canada and Mex­ico are work­ing towards tak­ing their tri­lat­eral part­ner­ship to the next level.

In the report North Amer­i­can Com­pet­i­tive­ness: The San Diego Agenda, Laura Daw­son, Christo­pher Sands, and Dun­can Wood exam­ine the evo­lu­tion of the NAFTA and pro­vide a blue­print for deep­en­ing tri­lat­eral inte­gra­tion. This includes a host of rec­om­men­da­tions deal­ing with har­mo­nized regional trade pol­icy, reg­u­la­tory align­ment, bor­der and infra­struc­ture, as well as human cap­i­tal and energy. As far as a reg­u­la­tory strat­egy goes, the paper called for the U.S.-Canada Reg­u­la­tory Coop­er­a­tion Coun­cil and the U.S.-Mexico High-Level Reg­u­la­tory Coop­er­a­tion Coun­cil to be coor­di­nated within a tri­lat­eral frame­work. In the area of bor­der secu­rity and effi­ciency, it also rec­om­mended that Mex­ico be included in the U.S.-Canada Beyond the Bor­der initiative.

The report stated that, “North America’s future demands deeper inte­gra­tion of our economies and stream­lined cross-border processes. Essen­tial ele­ments in ensur­ing long-term com­pet­i­tive­ness include infra­struc­ture spend­ing, energy coop­er­a­tion, invest­ing in human cap­i­tal for­ma­tion, increas­ing labor mobil­ity and labor mar­ket flex­i­bil­ity, reg­u­la­tory coop­er­a­tion and more effi­cient bor­der management.”

When it comes to fur­ther advanc­ing North Amer­i­can inte­gra­tion, the exten­sive pol­icy paper rein­forced the mes­sage that, “Tri­lat­er­al­ism is about the long game. Bilat­er­al­ism may move faster but can­not move as far.” It also stressed now that, “NAFTA has been insti­tu­tion­al­ized, it is sus­tained by working-level incre­men­tal­ism, and its ben­e­fits are erod­ing. It is time for a new leap of faith.”

With respects to a shared North Amer­i­can Vision, Laura Daw­son described how, “A win­dow of oppor­tu­nity for impor­tant pol­icy change is rare and actions involv­ing mul­ti­ple gov­ern­ments, inter­ests and stake­hold­ers are dif­fi­cult. I am con­vinced that it is time for action and that it will be a long while before there is a sim­i­lar con­ver­gence of oppor­tu­nity and inter­est.” The report that Daw­son helped put together con­cluded that, “the biggest imped­i­ment to progress is a lack of polit­i­cal lead­er­ship.” That is why many who are push­ing this agenda are hop­ing that the upcom­ing North Amer­i­can Lead­ers Sum­mit will help revive the NAFTA spirit and be used as launch­ing pad for greater tri­lat­eral collaboration.

After 20 years of NAFTA, there is a grow­ing sense from pro­po­nents of the deal that the time is right to take new steps towards North Amer­i­can eco­nomic inte­gra­tion. Beyond all those who view NAFTA as a suc­cess, there is a dark side and a legacy of bro­ken promises. When NAFTA was intro­duced, it rep­re­sented the archi­tec­ture for a new inter­na­tional sys­tem. It became the tem­plate for future trade agree­ments which have been used to pro­mote even greater cor­po­rate con­trol. The TPP nego­ti­a­tions which are cur­rently under­way would expand the failed NAFTA model to even more coun­tries. Fur­ther­more, with the U.S., Canada and Mex­ico all a part of the mas­sive trade talks, it also pro­vides an oppor­tu­nity to upgrade NAFTA with­out hav­ing to reopen it.

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  Filed Under: Agenda 21, North American Union
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  Comments
  The UN puppet, global Marxist totalitarian communist government Obama is ushering in place requires the court system they will get under the Trans-Pacific Partnership and a military they will largely get from the U.S. and its NATO allies.  If this isn’t stopped our national sovereignty will be toast.  The new world communism approach doesn’t require that countries be dissolved through revolution.  It just requires that countries be absorbed. If we quit the U.N. all of this would just go away. We have everything to lose.
  Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader