The Late Great USA by Jerome R. Corsi - Excerpts

The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada. Jerome R. Corsi. 2007. ISBN 978-0-079045-14-1

EXCERPTS

The argument made in The Late Great USA is that policy makers in the three nations and multinational corporations have placed the United States, Mexico, and Canada on a fast track to merge together economically and politically.

Our national sovereignty is in danger of being compromised in favor of an emerging regional government, designed of the elite, by the elite, and for the elite, who are working to achieve global ambitions in the pursuit of wealth and power for themselves

On December 18, 1951, “the Six” – a group of European nations consisting of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands – signed the Treaty of Paris, formally establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Then, on March 25, 1957, the Six signed the Treaty of Rome establishing the European Economic Community (EED), commonly referred to in the United Kingdom as the European Common Market. From here, a series of incremental steps can be traced that moved a European common market into a European regional government. Once Europe started taking steps toward economic unity, political unity followed.

The Treaty of the European Union, signed in Maastricht, the Netherlands, on February 7, 1992, formed a full-fledged regional government … On January 1, 2002, the euro was introduced and the traditional national currencies of the participating EU countries were phased out. Today, some 70 to 80 percent of the laws passed in Europe involve nothing more than rubber stamping regulations already written by nameless “working group” bureaucrats in Brussels, Luxembourg. Virtually gone is the ability of the European countries to set their own policy direction and the ultimate arbiter of justice is he European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, not the highest national court in each country.

This book will demonstrate that disturbing parallels exist between the stealth process that resulted in the EU, and the incremental actions being taken by the governments of the United States, Mexico, and Canada to unite our nations into an emerging regional configuration.

North America has its own version of the ECSC in NAFTA and in the SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership), put into place by an informal agreement between Mexico, Canada, and the United States in 2005. A North American Union is even advocated by America’s own Jean Monnet – Professor Robert Pastor, who has proposed a North American currency call the “amero”, and who has played a significant role in a number of meetings and conferences, closed to the public, between top American, Canadian, and Mexican officials.

In March 2005, the [Council on Foreign Relations] task force issued its first report, a chairmen’s summary entitled “Creating a North American Community.

… the CFR task force suggested that the borders between the United States and Mexico and between the United States and Canada be largely opened in the pursuit of regional economic prosperity. The task force clearly pushed for a North American common market: “We focus our recommendations on the creation of a single economic space that expands the economic opportunities of a security zone that protects the region from external threats while facilitating the legitimate passage of goods, people, and capital.” Open borders with Mexico and Canada would allow “migration” of “North Americans” (the citizens of the United States, Mexico, and Canada) relatively free passage across North American borders, provided the travelers presented the proper “North American” documents. The task force supported their North American focus with the following three specific recommendations:
• To adopt a common North American external tariff by “harmonizing” tariffs to the lowest possible rate between Mexico, Canada, and the United States.
• To develop a North American Border Pass with biometric identifiers to expedite passage through customs, immigration, and airport security throughout North America.
• To establish a North American Investment Fund to stimulate infrastructure development in Mexico.
The goal was to transform NAFTA into a European Union-type customs union.

To implement the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), the three [national] leaders decided that bureaucrats from the three nations would create “working groups” tasked with “integrating” and “harmonizing” the administrative law and regulatory structures of the three nations in a broad range of public policy areas. “Working groups” is a term commonly used in the European Union to describe the bureaucratic entities that run the EU from behind closed doors in Brussels and Luxembourg. Working groups were constituted at the Waco summit [2005] to put in motion the creation of a continental set of administrative rules and regulations the bureaucrats in the three nations would use to set continental public policy within the legal structure of their three countries, a feat to be achieved by “memoranda of understanding”, not laws or treaties.

This Security and Prosperity Partnership of North American (SPP) was never submitted to Congress for debate and decision. There was no law passed by Congress, no law signed by the president, and no treated ratified by the Senate.

The CFR Independent Task force on the Future of North America [2005] repeated the earlier statement of the CFR Chairman’s Statement that 2010 was an important date: “The Task Force’s central recommendation is the 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 perimenter.

Like [Jean Monnet], [Robert] Pastor rejects traditional notions of American sovereignty. In a 2004 article in CFR’s Foreign Affairs entitle “North America’s Second Decade,” Pastor argued that the United States would gain by ceding U.S. national sovereignty. “Countries are benefited,” he wrote, “when they change these [national sovereignty] policies, and evidence suggests that North Americans are ready for a new relationship that renders this old definition of sovereignty obsolete.”

In his 2001 book Toward a North American Community, Pastor never used the phrase “North American Union,” but he devoted an entire chapter to asking: “Is a North American Community Feasible? Can Sovereignty Be Transcended?” Here Pastor argued that trilateral thinking is “contrary to habit, but essential.” Carefully, Pastor follows the lead of Jean Monnet, who learned to suppress any reference to his desire to create a “European union” … What is needed, he concluded, to establish this community “is the nurturing of a regional identity and small steps that would help the peoples of the three countries understand the need for deeper integration.

Pastor has also argued that we should expand the NAFTA visa program into a North American passport, an idea SPP advanced as biometric “trusted traveler” border passes. He recommended the formation of a single North American Customs and Immigration Force, an idea the CFR task force report in May 2005 advanced as developing a North American security perimeter.

… on October 7, 2004 Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate (S. 2491) that authorized the president “to negotiate the creation of a North American Investment Fund that was distinct from the North American Development fund. The move did not escape Pastor’s attention. He called S. 2491 “a far-reaching bill that incorporates lessons from Europe and proposes to channel funds from all three governments toward infrastructure and education in Mexico.” He was pleased to see his pet project introduced to Congress, especially since a conservative Republican Party senator from a state adjoining Mexico introduced the bill. The language of Cornyn’s bill was so close to Pastor’s own writings that many suspected Pastor had worked directly with Senator Cornyn in developing the proposed legislation.

Among Pastor’s key recommendations is that we establish the amero. The amero is a regional currency designed to replace the U.S. dollar, the Canadian dollar, and the Mexican peso, much as the euro has replaced the currencies of the participating European Union nations.

In a 1999 paper entitled, “The Case for the Amero: The Economics and Politics of a North American Monetary Union,” [Herbert] Grubel explained his plans for creating the amero. He took pains to argue that the innovation would not necessarily erode national sovereignty … Grubel proposed, as an example, a plan to convert to the amero in 2010 … Ironically, this coincides with the Council on Foreign Relations task force’s report “building a North American Community,” which suggests that same date as a target for putting in place the basic institutions required for a new regional government. At the same time, Grubel proposed a North American central bank that would replace the national central banks of the three countries and a board of governors that would be chosen the economic importance and the population of the three countries.

Pastor openly acknowledges that the idea of abandoning the dollar will be unpopular in the United States. He also understands that the United States economy dominates the North American market and, as such, the United States has less to gain by abandoning the dollar to a new currency that would incorporate Canada and Mexico in a monetary union. Still, Pastor argues that in the long run the concept is “fair” in that the introduction of the amero “does not alter the relative power equation in North America, but it provides space for our neighbors to participate in decision making. Pastor compares “the essence of the idea” with how Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D Roosevelt envisioned international organizations that allowed decision-making space for all participating nations on an equal basis, regardless of their relative strength or size. For this reason, Pastor urged readers not to dismiss the idea, but to consider that “in the long term, the amero is in the best interests of all three countries.”

The arguments to implement the amero gain strength as the dollar continues to weaken. With our large trade and federal budget deficits, a fiscal crisis is building for the dollar.

The winners in free trade have been multinational corporations, who already operate across countries to such an extent that they view borders as anachronistic, if not an impediment to their business expansion and profit potential.

The introduction of the amero would entail the same loss of sovereignty that the introduction of the euro has caused in Europe. Today, the central banks of the European Union countries using the euro are no longer in control of their own national destinies.

A move to the amero as a unitary North American currency would entail a similar move to a North American Central Bank, which would have similar supremacy over the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve.

Multinational corporations feel they have the right to set the rules, since their economic activity produces the wealth and employment individual nation-states rely upon for taxation and revenue. Without multinational corporations, the United States, Canada, and Mexico would become economic basket cases. Or so leaders of such companies claim.

The North American Competitiveness Council, a public group consisting of businesspeople and formed under the SPP, has been created to allow multinational corporations to advise the three governments on the future progress and direction of SPP. These big business-influenced working groups are hard at work attempting to integrate North America.

Chapter 11 of the NAFTA agreement allows a private NAFTA foreign investor to sue the U.S. government if the investor believes a state or federal law damages the investor’s NAFTA business. Under Chapter 11, NAFTA established a tribunal that may conduct a trial to decide the case according to the legal principals established by either the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes or the UN’s Commission for International Trade Law. If the decision is adverse to the United States, the NAFTA tribunal can impose its decision as final, trumping U.S. law, even as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

As the SPP advances, will the U.S. Bill of Rights be among the laws that have to be “integrated” and “harmonized” with Mexico’s and Canada’s?

Robert Pastor has repeatedly argued for the creation of a North American Union “Permanent Tribual on Trade and Investment.” He understands that a “permanent court would permit the accumulation of precedent and lay the groundwork for North American business law.

If a NAFTA Chapter 11 tribunal can overturn even Supreme Court decisions, we have already entered the era where a regional judicial structure created under a trade law has power over the highest court in the land. The movement toward a North American Union begins with the economy, moves to the courts, and ends with political union.

Mexico has placed the SPP within the office of the secretaria de economia and created an extensive website for the Alianza Para La Securidad Y La Prosperidad de America del Norte (ASPAN). The Mexican website describes ASPAN as “a permanent trilateral process to create a major integration of North America.”

While the SPP has worked to ease border restrictions by implementing trusted traveler and trusted trader programs, the Bush administration through the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has supported plans in the state of Texas to build a huge NAFTA superhighway, four football fields wide, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Texas, to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minnesota. The moment the Texas Legislature suggested imposing a two-year moratorium on the construction of TTC-35 parallel to Interstate 35, the chief counsel for FHWA sent a letter to the executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) threatening a loss of federal highway funds should the legislature move ahead.

Construction began on the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) following the reelection of Governor [Rick] Perry in November 2006. In a four-way race in which a plurality of the vote was sufficient to win, Perry was reelected with less than 40 percent of the vote. All three of his opponents campaigned against the Trans-Texas Corridor. Despite receiving less than a majority vote, Perry has been determined to proceed with the TTC-35 project. Plans to build TTC-35 are fully disclosed on www.keeptexasmoving.org, and official Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) website.

Texas will make use of the recent Supreme Court case Kelo v. City of New London (545 U.S. 469 [2005]). In this case, the Supreme Court decided that eminent domain could be used to seize private property from U.S. citizens even though the purpose of the land seizure was to benefit a private corporation. The Supreme Court case said nothing that would imply the private corporation involved would have to be a U.S. corporation, which allows the Spanish-owned group backing the TTC to operate.

The Council of Kansas City voted on May 18,2006, to name the Mexican customs facility the “Kansas City Customs Port,” despite the fact that it is actually a Mexican possession, staffed by Mexican government customs officials. The $3 million facility will be paid for by Kansas City taxpayers, not by the Mexican government.

CANAMEX is a proposed NAFTA superhighway that would extend from Edmonton, in Alberta, Canada, to Mexico City. The route would connect Salt Lake City and Las Vegas on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. On the eastern slope, a superhighway called “Camino Real” would connect Billings, Montaa; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Denver, Colorado; and El Paso, Texas. Both routes would connect in Canada, extending to Fairbanks, Alaska, and in Mexico where they would terminate at Mexico City. In 1995, CANAMEX Corridor (www.canamex.org) was founded as a trade organization. The FHWA identifies CANAMEX and the Camino Real routes as High Priority Corridors under federal highway law.

In order to solidify its economic superiority over North America, Red China is working to restructure the North American transportation infrastructure. To that end, they are investing heavily in developing deep water ports in Mexico in order to bring an unprecedented volume of containers into the United States along the emerging NAFTA super corridor. Hutchison Ports Holdings (HPH), a wholly owned subsidiary of China’s giant Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL), is investing millions to expand the deep water ports on Mexico’s Pacific coast at Lazaro Cardenas and Manzanillo. Now Hutchison Ports is pledging millions more to develop Punta Colonet, a desolate Mexican Bay in Baja California. Mexico plans over the next seven years to dredge and convert Punta Colonet into a ten- to twenty-berth-deep water port capable of processing some six million standard Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs).

The Port Authority of San Antonio has been working actively with the Chinese to open and develop the Mexican coast to more Chinese shipments. In April 2006, officials of the Port Authority of San Antonio traveled to China with representatives of the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio, the Port of Lazaro Cardenas, and Hutchison Port Holdings to develop the Mexican ports … The Free Trade Alliance San Antonio is self-described as a “public-private” organization created in 1994 to lead the development of San Antonio as a competitive “inland port and international trade center.

In a letter included in the 2006 Financial Report of the United States Government, David M. Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States, clarified the $53 trillion negative net worth; “This translates to a current burden of about $170,000 per American or approximately $440,000 per American household.”

The United States currently has totalization agreements with twenty-one countries. The agreements allow workers to combine earnings from foreign countries with earnings in the United States to qualify for Social Security benefits. The agreement with Mexico would allow a Mexican worker to quality for Social Security benefits after only six quarters (eighteen months) of employment in the United States. A U.S. worker typically needs forty calendar quarters (120 months) to receive U.S. Social Security benefits. The agreement reveals the Bush administration’s determination to incorporate illegal workers from Mexico into the U.S. economy. Furthermore, keeping the U.S.-Mexico Totalization Agreement from the public suggests the Bush administration has something to hide.

QUOTATIONS

Robert L. Bartley
Reformist Mexican President Vincente Fox raises eyebrows with his suggestion that over a decade or two NAFTA should evolve into something like the European Union, with open borders for not only goods and investment but also people. He can rest assured that there is one voice north of the Rio Grande that supports his vision. To wit, this newspaper [Wall Street Journal].

Robert N. Gardner
In short the case-by-case approach can produce some remarkable concessions of “sovereignty” that could not be achieved on an across-the-board basis

Herbert G. Grubel
[in 1999] On the day the North American Monetary Union is created – perhaps on January 1, 2010 – Canada, the United States and Mexico will replace their national currencies with the amero.

Jean Monnet
The sovereign nations of the past could no longer solve the problems of the present; they cannot ensure their own progress or control their own future. And the [European] Community is only a stage on the way to the organized world of tomorrow.

Thomas A. Shannon
What we are doing in North America today is consolidating democratic states, integrating them economically but then providing a security overlay and a level of cooperation and dialogue that will strengthen the economic institutions, strengthen our ability to protect and promote our prosperity, and enhance our ability to create the opportunity that people can … take advantage of.