North American Union

Map of the theoretical NAU, with Canada, Mexico and the United States

Dark green: theoretical union, Light green and dark green: geographic North America

The North American Union (abbreviated:NAU; French: Union Nord-Américaine, UNA, Spanish: Unión América del Norte, UAN) is a theoretical continental union of Canada, Mexico and the United States similar in structure to the European Union, sometimes including a common currency called the Amero. Officials from all three nations have said there are no government plans to create such a union, although the idea has been discussed and proposed in academic and scholarly circles, either as a union or as a North American Community (see Independent Task Force on North America). The formation of a North American Union has been the subject of various conspiracy theories.

History of the North American Union concept

Main articles: Independent Task Force on North America and Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America

In the 20th century the first well-known proposal for a form of North American unification was the North American technate proposed by Technocracy Incorporated in their Technocracy Study Course published first in 1934. The technate would include not only Canada, the U.S., and Mexico, but also Central America, the Caribbean, Greenland, and parts of South America. A technate governing North America remains an objective of the organization.

Most mainstream interest in a North American Union has focused on the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) which finds its origins in proposals for increasing integration in the NAFTA trade bloc during President Bush's first term. Such ideas were commonly called proposals for a NAFTA plus. Former President Vicente Fox of Mexico proposed such an agreement including a NAFTA energy policy, a security NAFTA policy, an advance in financial institutions interchanged, and according to other reports a common market, development fund, migration agreement and new institutions. Fox said such an agreement would take the U.S. and Mexico to a "further integration" and eventually seeking a "convergence" of their economies allowing them to "erase that border".

The attacks of September 11, 2001 turned the focus of integration towards American concerns about security and away from Mexican concerns about immigration and open borders. When the SPP was formed in 2005, a migration agreement was not mentioned focusing instead on synchronizing regulatory policy, reducing congestion at the border, and rationalizing external tariffs. The SPP, however, did include Canadian proposals for reducing congestion at the border.

Prior to the formation of the SPP the Independent Task Force on North America, a project organized by the Council on Foreign Relations (U.S.), the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, and the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations, launched in October 2004, published two documents calling for greater integration between the three countries: Trinational Call for a North American Economic and Security Community by 2010 (March 2005) and its final report Building a North American Community (May 2005).

Their final report, which has been described as "an academic exercise with pretensions of reaching policymakers," proposed increased international cooperation between the nations of Canada, the United States, and Mexico, similar in some respects to that of the European Community that preceded the European Union or the United States' own Articles of Confederation (of sovereign independent states) that preceded the ratification of the United States Constitution which formed a tighter union. The report called for "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter." No recommendation was made for a common currency or a supranational institution like the European Union. The report said that a North American Community should not rely on "grand schemes of confederation or union".

In reference to the March 2005 summit in Waco, Texas that established the SPP, the task force's final report stated, "We welcome this important development and offer this report to add urgency and specific recommendations to strengthen their efforts." These specific recommendations include developing a North American customs union, common market, investment fund, energy strategy, set of regulatory standards, security perimeter, border pass, and advisory council, among other common goals.

The formation of the SPP, the reports from the Independent Task Force, and comments from Vicente Fox were cited as evidence for a planned North American Union. Theories about an ongoing plan are common on the Internet, especially among bloggers and other writers. American ultra-conservative Jerome Corsi's columns on WorldNetDaily and Human Events, as well as his best-selling book The Late Great U.S.A.: The Coming Merger With Mexico and Canada, formed the core of NAU conspiracy theories. Corsi himself is often referred to as the leader of the anti-North American Union movement.

Features

Concepts of a North American Union share a number of common elements between them. NASCO and the SPP have both denied that there are any plans to establish a common currency, a "NAFTA Superhighway", or a North American Union in "Myths vs Facts" pages on their websites.

Amero

Main article: North American currency union

The amero is the appellation given to what would be the North American Union's counterpart to the euro. It was first proposed in 1999 by Canadian economist Herbert G. Grubel. A senior fellow of the Fraser Institute think-tank, he published a book entitled The Case for the Amero in September 1999, the year that the euro became a virtual currency. Robert Pastor, vice-chairman of the Independent Task Force on North America, supported Grubel's conclusions in his 2001 book Toward a North American Community, stating that: "In the long term, the amero is in the best interests of all three countries." Another Canadian think-tank, the conservative C.D. Howe Institute, advocates the creation of a shared currency between Canada and the United States. Although then-Mexican President Vicente Fox had expressed support for the idea, when Grubel brought up the idea to American officials, they said they were not interested, citing lack of benefits for the U.S.

On August 31 2007, Internet broadcaster and conspiracy theorist Hal Turner claimed to have arranged for a United States Government minted Amero coin to be smuggled out of the Treasury Department by an employee of that organization. Snopes has assessed both Turner's story and the existence of the amero as "False.".

NAFTA Superhighway

Further information: NAFTA superhighway

Interstate 29 and Interstate 35.

The Trans-Texas Corridor was first proposed by Texas Governor Rick Perry in 2002. It consists of a 1,200 foot (366 m) wide highway that also carries utilities such as electricity, petroleum and water as well as railway track and fiber-optic cables. In July 2007, U.S. Representative and candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election Duncan Hunter successfully offered an amendment to House Resolution 3074, the FY2008 Transportation Appropriations Act, prohibiting the use of federal funds for Department of Transportation participation in the activities of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). Hunter stated that: "Unfortunately, very little is known about the NAFTA Super Highway. This amendment will provide Congress the opportunity to exercise oversight of the highway, which remains a subject of question and uncertainty, and ensure that our safety and security will not be compromised in order to promote the business interests of our neighbors." Fellow Republican Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul brought the issue to mainstream prominence during the December 2007 CNN-YouTube GOP debate, where he rejected the concept and also called it "the NAFTA Superhighway" and, like Hunter, framed it within "the ultimate goal" of creating a North American Union.

The Ministry of Transportation for the province of Alberta displays a diagram on their website that labels I-29 and I-35 as the "NAFTA Superhighway".

Official statements

• U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez stated "There is no secret plan to create a North American union, or a common currency, or to intrude on the sovereignty of any of the partner nations".
• Officials from the Federal Highway Administration have denied the creation of a NAFTA superhighway.
• NASCO denies a new proposal for a "NAFTA superhighway" saying, "it exists today as I-35."
• In an August 2007 press conference in Montebello, Canada, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated that he didn't believe that the NAU was a "generally expressed concern", while U.S. President George W. Bush called concerns of a North American Union "political scare tactics" and described as "comical" the "difference between reality and what some people are talking on TV about."

Legislative opposition

In September 2006, U.S. Representative Virgil Goode proposed with six co-sponsors non-binding House Concurrent Resolution 487, which specifically outlined opposition to a North American Union or a NAFTA Superhighway as a threat to U.S. sovereignty. The bill never left committee. The same resolution was reintroduced by Goode in January 2007 for the 110th Congress as House Concurrent Resolution 40, this time with forty-three cosponsors, including 2008 Republican presidential candidates Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo, who have all expressed opposition to a North American Union during their campaigns.

Contemporary proponents of a North American Union or similar concept

• Then President of Mexico, Vicente Fox said in an interview for Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy that in the long term he sought with the United States a "convergence of our two economies, convergence on the basic and fundamental variables of the economy, convergence on rates of interest, convergence on income of people, convergence on salaries." He suggested this might take as long as 20 years to be realized, but the ultimate "convergence" he saw between the United States and Mexico would allow them to "erase that border, open up that border for [the] free flow of products, merchandises, [and] capital as well as people". After leaving office, he continued to support the concept, while expressing his disappointment with the changed American political situation which made it seem more difficult to come to fruition. In an online discussion of his book Revolution of Hope: The Life, Faith, and Dreams of A Mexican President Fox cited the process of European integration and asked a questioner, "Why can't we be not only partners in the long term, but a North American Union?"

• Professor Robert Pastor is a Vice Chair of the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America who has suggested forming a North American Commission similar to the European Commission and other governing institutions for North America.

• United North America, an organization created in 2000, advocates the democratic transition to statehood of Canadian provinces into the USA as states, under the existing framework of the United States.

North American Union in popular culture

Literature

• In the science fiction space opera the Lensman series by E.E. Smith, in Volume Two of the series, the 1950 book First Lensman, one of the heroes, Roderick Kinnison (a member of the Galactic Patrol), wins election as President of North America on the Cosmocratic Party ticket against the corrupt Witherspoon, who ran on the Nationalist Party ticket. North America still uses the electoral college system. The President of North America has a five year term. North America is a republic composed of the former nations of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Its constituent states are the former provinces of Canada, states of the United States, and states of Mexico (This would make a total of 91 states, assuming the Canadian territories had not yet become states by that time.). The novel takes place several hundred years in the future after Earth has recovered from the late 20th Century World War III and has developed interstellar travel using the inertialess drive.

In the documentary 'Zeitgeist' ([1]) The NAU is apparently already established and ratified by President George W. Bush himself. The documentary suggests this is part of a conspiracy being kept secret from the public.

See also

• Canadian Action Party
• Central American Free Trade Agreement
• Free Trade Area of the Americas
• Manifest Destiny
• Union of South American Nations

External links

• The North American Union Farce by Laura Carlsen, March 3, 2008.
• SPP in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
• H. Con. Res. 40: Expressing the sense of Congress that the United States should not engage in the construction of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Superhighway System or enter into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada.
• United North America is a non-profit organization that advocates the admittance of Canadian provinces into the United States as new states of the Union.