AND YOU THOUGHT NAFTA WAS BAD:

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AND YOU THOUGHT NAFTA WAS BAD: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SECURITY AND
PROSPERITY PARTNERSHIP OF NORTH AMERICA

DOLLARS & SENSE - While left activists and researchers in Canada and
Mexico have been spreading the word about the [Security and Prosperity
Partnership of North America] for several years, so far in the United
States the SPP, which was officially launched in March 2005, has mainly
caught the attention of the right wing, which sees it as a stealth plan
to impose a European Union-style government on the continent.

The SPP is not a North American version of the European Union. But it is
a stealth plan-one aimed at bypassing the kind of international
solidarity that halted the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas and the
Multilateral Agreement on Investment. The European Union emerged after
years of public debate and a treaty ratified by member states. By
contrast, the SPP is not a treaty and will never be submitted to the
U.S., Mexican, or Canadian legislatures. Instead it attempts to reshape
the North American political economy by direct use of executive
authority. And while the European Union maintains an explicit role for
government in addressing inequality within and between countries, the
SPP's foundation is an unequal alliance where the United States retains
the political and economic trump cards.

Designed to shore up the United States' weakening position as a global
hegemon, the SPP's primary goals are to link economic integration of the
three countries to U.S. security needs; deepen U.S. access to oil, gas,
electricity, and water resources throughout the continent; and to
provide a privileged-and institutionalized-role for transnational
corporations in continental deregulation. The stakes for labor, the
environment, and civil liberties in all three countries couldn't be
higher. Yet because of the SPP's reliance on executive authority to push
the agenda, many of the SPP's initiatives remain virtually invisible,
even to many activists.

The North American Free Trade Agreement, which went into effect in 1994,
was designed to enhance the access of transnational capital from the
United States to cheap Mexican labor and Canadian natural resources. The
SPP deepens these relations and harnesses the so- called war on terror
to an expanded U.S.-Mexican- Canadian trade agenda and a lopsided energy
grab to secure U.S. access to dwindling continental oil and gas
reserves.

As its name implies, the SPP has two basic parts: the Security Agenda
and the Prosperity Agenda. Both are rooted in the United States'
deteriorating global position, particularly its increased competition
for access to global oil and gas reserves and worsening trade balance
with China.

With the explicit aim of securing North America from "internal" as well
as external threats, the Security Agenda coordinates intelligence
activities among the three countries and streamlines the movement of
"low risk" goods and people (especially so-called "NAFTA professionals")
across borders. It also involves extensive military coordination, much
of it focused on protecting energy and transportation infrastructure.
(Consolidating a North American military structure no doubt also serves
as an offensive hedge against Venezuela's attempt to shape an
independent South American energy policy.). . .

In Canada and Mexico the opposition to SPP is better organized and hence
less vulnerable to being thrown off balance by the right (or by
government officials)-all the more reason for U.S. activists to make
common cause with left activists to the north and south.

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2008/0108sciacchitano.html

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