North American Union???

[Paslode]

Leaked U.S. cable lays out North American ‘integration’ strategy

Postmedia News Jun 2, 2011 – 3:02 PM ET | Last Updated: Jun 3, 2011 2:26 PM ET

By Robert Hiltz

OTTAWA — The integration of North America’s economies would best be achieved through an “incremental” approach, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable.

The cable, released through the WikiLeaks website and apparently written Jan. 28, 2005, discusses some of the obstacles surrounding the merger of the economies of Canada, the United States and Mexico in a fashion similar to the European Union.

“An incremental and pragmatic package of tasks for a new North American Initiative (NAI) will likely gain the most support among Canadian policymakers,” the document said. “The economic payoff of the prospective North American initiative … is available, but its size and timing are unpredictable, so it should not be oversold.”

Many different areas of a possible integration are discussed throughout the cable, but the focus is on improving the economic welfare of the continent. It suggests one of the main benefits to Canada would be easier access across the U.S. border, calling it a “top motive” for this country.

The cable states Canada and the U.S. already share perimeter security “to some degree,” the question is then how “strong” the two countries want to make that bond.

Discussions are currently underway about increasing co-operation between the two countries when it comes to perimeter security. A broad-based document was released by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama in February of this year, laying the groundwork for a deal that would see improved intelligence communication for security concerns and trade.

The details are currently being hashed out by officials from both countries. The proposed deal aims to improve the flow of cross-border traffic and increase security against terrorist threats.

Opposition parties have expressed a certain wariness over the lack of transparency of the talks and say they worry Harper will be too willing to make concessions to the U.S. over security issues, in order to gain an advantage in cross-border trade.

In the cable, U.S. diplomats focused on a number of key areas to move forward with continental integration, including a possible common currency, labour markets, international trade and the borders of the three countries.

The cable said Canadian economists were split on whether a fixed exchange rate, or a move to adopt the U.S. greenback, would benefit this country.

The document states Canadian economists point to labour markets as one of the areas which could have the greatest benefit for all three countries.

“They advocate freeing up professional licensing laws, and developing a quick, simple, low-cost work permit system, at least for U.S. and Canadian citizens,” the cable said.

It goes on to say North America would be well served by implementing a single, continent wide, tariff or a customs union arrangement.

The proposed customs union would eliminate the North American Free Trade Agreement’s “restrictive” rules of origin.

“NAFTA’s (rules of origin) are so restrictive that importers often prefer to pay the tariff rather than try to prove North American origin,” the cable said.

The cable concludes with a caveat: “There is little basis on which to estimate the size of the ‘upside’ gains from an integration initiative concentrating on non-tariff barriers of the kind contained in NAI. For this reason we cannot make the claims about how large the benefits might be on a national or continental scale.”

Posted in: Canada, News Tags: Canada, Canada-U.S. relations, free trade, Mexico, NAFTA, north am, North America, U.S.-Canada border, United States, WikiLeaks

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/06...0%99-strategy/

[steel71]

Yes, Lou Dobbs, when working for CNN, was reporting about this until he got pressured to resign.

[Sigaba]

Jerome Corsi offered an interesting perspective on this concept back in 2006 <<LINK>>.

[rdret1]

I could understand a stronger bond with Canada, but what benefit would we gain by one with Mexico? The EU has been struggling for several years now with the richer nations having to cover for those with less fiscally responsible policies. Such an arrangement with Mexico would drain us financially.

Would an arrangement with Mexico give us a greater influence in dealing with narco-gangs south of the border. requiring possible military resources and intervention? Without gaining some type of control over the drug probelm in Mexico, I don't see how such "union" with Mexico could work.

[PRB]

This is working so well in Europe...can't imagine why we'd not want to give up our sovereignity so we can all just get along.
Who controls the currency when mult. states 'unionize'...
The regulations for trade....
etc.etc...
Just the 'union label' makes me want to sign right up.

[Scimitar]

I think it comes down to basically things like BRIC, Brazil, Russia, India, China, pedicted by Goldman Sachs to hold something like 75% of the worlds GDP by 2050.

In any trading bloc you need, labour, technology, resource, and money. We can't do that all by ourselves, and soon with Oil the way it's going geography will again become a variable, as the percentage cost of global transport again becomes an advantage.

The NAU has been in the pipeline for decades, it will eventually happen, however it's a bit like a marriage, two become one and then they come back from the honeymoon and you find out which one they became. It's not so much giving away our soverignty, it's how much will our new soverignty look like our old one. We have pretty big leverage compared to Canada and Mexico, so I'm not too worried.

However the islamification of Europe, BRIC, and th end off the American Century, these things worry me.

S