Sunday, August 3, 2014

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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