Wouldn’t that make protectionists who hate NAFTA happy?
Oh well obviously we’re trying to cut the US out 
Hey, instead of building a super highway, us Canadians and Mexicans can invent huge very efficient ships that could carry things that I’d call ‘containers’ which would be filled full of goods. These ‘Container Ships’ could bypass the US border completely and have that 4% all to ourselves! Bwahahahaaa! :rolleyes:
How much trade do they think 30 million Canadians and a relatively poor country like Mexico can deprive the US of? For the life of me I can’t think what a Mexican would want with a toque?
Yeah, of course it’s stupid, because it assumes that shipping would deliberately ignore the US because…well, I can’t figure out why they would do that, actually. The conspiracy theory is that there would be a highway across the US from Canada to Mexico, but there would be no on-ramps or off-ramps in the US. And this would help Canada and Mexico…how? And how would the trucks get gas, how would the truckers eat, sleep, or take a piss?
You can already ship goods from Canada to Mexico and vice versa. It seems that the conspiracy theorists believe that shippers would ignore the US market purely out of spite.
The other thing that makes no sense about the North American Union, is how do the illuminati benefit? Yeah, a real North American Union could benefit the illuminati, but the cartoon version where the US is taken over by Canadian socialists and Mexican anarchists, how does that work? Don’t the illuminati who control the US want to maintain their control? Why would they voluntarily allow the Canadian illuminati and Mexican illuminati freeze them out? Isn’t it one big conspiracy? How does it benefit the illuminati to destroy America?
If the illuminati control America, they don’t want to trash their own property, do they? And if they already secretly control the US government, to the extent that the morning when they give the order to sign over American people into slavery US government officials will simply obey orders, then why bother with the rebranding effort? Won’t it just make controlling the American people more difficult? An American fascist government isn’t going to fly the Swastika, they’ll fly the American flag.
NAFTA in its present form differs from the European Union in that it has no elected parliament. All its rules are drafted by government and corporate bureaucrats several layers insulated from politics. If we had something like the EU, the U.S. would dominate it by dint of both relative numbers and relative wealth; but the people of Canada and Mexico would have a say. Maybe that’s what some isolationist Americans find frightening. Or maybe they can’t see the distinction – they’re just thinking of a North American Union as NAFTA-only-more-so.
Well, sure. But there’s a difference between a North American Union where the illuminati who already control the US bring Canada and Mexico under their heel as well (or rather, more firmly under their heel), and a North American Union where Canada and Mexico take over the United States and turn us into a colony. The first scenario is logical and even has a grain of truth to it, the second isn’t.
Come on, everybody knows the real threat to U.S. supremacy is the danger of all those Mexicanadian Semis. You know, the 18 wheel low-riders carrying shipments of LaBatts, Back bacon and Frijoles?
Don’t turn your backs on 'em, that’s what I say.
Are you sure you aren’t talking about the Onion article? The usual “NAFTA superhighway” conspiracy theories aren’t about an overpass, a la the Onion story; they’re just about a huge ugly freeway. I suppose it’s possible that elements of the Onion bit have become incorporated into the conspiracy theories.
So you’re saying that we DON’T have a say now, in regards to what out government goes, but WOULD have a say if you just created another, higher level of government? You do realize that doesn’t make any sense?
What you’ve described is precisely the opposite of what would happen; we have a say NOW, and would not if there was political union; or, at least, we’d have less of a say. As it stands, Canada and Mexico are independent countries who at least in some regards enjoy the same power and sovereignty as does the USA. Canada can simply pull out of NAFTA tomorrow if it wants to, or skirt around its regulations in any number of ways. Sure, the USA is more influential in some regards, but in terms of the substance of NAFTA, we’re one vote out of three. In a North American union, we’d be one vote out of fifteen. How is that better than one out of three?
And of course we have a say over NAFTA. If we wanted out we’d elect the NDP. Saying the populace doesn’t have a say over NAFTA is like saying we don’t have a say over… well, over anything; criminal law, civil law, economic policy, whatever you want to name. Virtually all of that if drafted by bureacrats; we don’t have gigantic, 32-million-people town hall meetings in Algonquin Park where we all agree on matters of government policy. We have elections, and choose representatives to do this stuff for us. If we don’t have a say over NAFTA, we don’t really have a say over anything. How would a super-Parliament covering 450 million people be MORE democratic than one covering 32 million?
Yes, but this would be a big road with Mexicans driving on it. Start shuddering from the fear!
More realistically, it may be possible that NAFTA will spur highway development from northern Mexico to the central Canadian border, but if anything that will cause improvement on a broad network of roads in the Midwest and south central states. The idea that there will be one great big highway zooming from this unitary locality called Mexico to that unitary locality called Canada is simply ludicrous.
Besides, if you want to ship goods from say Mexico City to Toronto, in addition to those newfangled and scary ships that were already mentioned, you could also load the goods onto carriages that are pulled in long chains by very powerful motorized carriages along parallel pairs of skinny metal rods. I’m reliably informed that they have run these skinny metal rods along several routes from Mexico to Canada that one may send one’s goods along, and that sending things that way for long distances may even be cheaper than putting them on trucks driven the thousand miles or so between the northern and southern U.S. borders.
I’m saying we the people (American, Canadian or Mexican) don’t have much say in NAFTA policy, not since the basic treaty was approved. It’s all done under the radar, in quiet meetings.
It’s done under the radar in quiet meetings by our elected representatives. So, we could change NAFTA implementation by choosing who we elect.
And, again, how is this different from the way any other part of the government works?
My point was that it’s different from how the European Union works. No elected parliament of its own. Less transparent. Go to the website of the NAFTA Secretariat. Go to the FAQ section – #15, “Who are Panel members?” It doesn’t even tell you who they are, it just says:
To what Congressional or Parliamentary oversight committee, if any, do each nation’s panelists report? Who knows? You want to have some input, as a citizen? How do you do it? Who knows?
See this 2004 article on NAFTA’s 10-year anniversary:
No, that’s not what he said.
Here’s some words from thier own literature.
“No, a key purpose of this superhighway is to speed cheap goods from Red China through Mexico and across the United States and Canada. Cheap goods from red China and cheap foriegn labor from latin America will flow across our borders without any inspection other than an electronic signal given off by a smart pass. These goods will be examined by no human hands until they arrive at the system’s main smaertport in Kansas City. Once completed this New World Order monstrosity will be 1,600 miles long and 1,200 feet wide through Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. The key checkpoint - - - at Kansas City - - - will be controlled by Mexico. Since the goods and people to be inspected originated at ports in Mexico, this smartport will be designated “Mexican territory” and will be run and operated by the Mexican government! It will likely rusult in eminant domain enforcement against the property rights of hundred and thousands of Americans.”
And:
“If this makes no sense to you, you are not alone. But sadly, it makes perfect sense to President Bush and others who seek to:
++ wipe out our borders and immigration controls
++ bypass American commerce laws (including the Constitution) and replace them with a series of vague trade agreements
++ replace high income American union truck drivers with cheap Mexican and foreign labor
++ enrich Red China and multinational corporations who do business with Beijing by making it easier for the PRC to flood America with cheap goods made by slave labor”
That seems to be the gist of it.
Haven’t encountered the phrase “Red China” in years.
If the Mexicans are gonna get Kansas City, I want Albuquerque.
I managed to find some information on this “superhighway,” and on North American Union, at the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (an American initiative, it seems) website. Some selections from its Myths vs. Facts page that should address some of the points raised in the OP:
There are plenty more myths and facts at the link–check them out. But given that the SPP is an American initiative, it doesn’t sound to me like the US government is selling out to Mexico, dumping the Constitution, giving away American sovreignty, or anything similar.
This took me a couple of minutes of searching Google. Wonder where Rixlan’s pamphlet author got their info?
The EU, however, is about more than trade. EU countries have no border controls, and exert VASTLY more control over the entire EU territory in terms of a variety of aspects of civil law.
NAFTA is not a government. It’s a trade agreement between three governments. It doesn’t need an elected parliament any more than the Geneva Conventions need an elected parliament, or some salmon fishery agreement needs an elected parliament. The US and Canada are signatories to HUNDREDS of bilateral, trilateral, and polylateral treaties; why aren’t you bitching about all those treaties not having parliaments? The UNITED NATIONS doesn’t have an elected parliament. I just don’t comprehend your complaint; you want a trade deal to have a parliament? Isn’t it the job of national governments to negotiate and sign treaties? Do you really want a national referendum on every single one?
And yes, you’ve come up with the usual quotes from folks saying NAFTA’s “secretive.” Lots of people can be found who don’t like it.
I’m going to ask this question for the third time, and would like an answer; how is this different from other aspects of governance?
I mean, I don’t have the first bit of direct input into how the Ministry of Transportation decides to spend my tax dollars on the transportation infrastructure, and I have no idea who the bureaucrats and mandarins are who make those calls. (I used to do some work with MTO, and I can tell you right now that they barely know themselves.) I have a similarly vague understanding of how the Ministry of Health works. I haven’t a clue how the Ministry of National Defence works. There’s no aspect of governance, save the performance of the politicians themselves and things that actually involve me personally, that’s easily “open” or genuinely “transparent.”
That’s because a panel is struck for each issue.
To answer your first question, where the experts come from depends on the specific issue; in terms of who they answer to, Canada has a Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and NAFTA issues are routed through it. In the United States it’s the Department of Commerce, and you can call their NAFTA Secretariat branch at 202.482-5438. It took me less than one minute to find that.
As to your second question, exactly the same way I have input on any other government decision, on whether they build a new Highway 424 out near Cambridge, or allow more private care, or buy new tanks for the Army; I can vote, I can write letters to my MP or MPP, I can write letters to the paper. I can call the government and ask questions. How do YOU have input into such things?
Do these people really think that most of the goods imported into the US today are actually inspect now? For the last 13 years I’ve worked for and with companies that import electronic components. A vast majority of them were never touched by a customs inspector. The ship pulled into a dock in California, a crane moved the shipping container full of parts from the boat to a train, and the parts were delivered to Chicago 3 days later. Close to 99% of those shipments were never inspected. The occasional container that was actually inspected would be delayed by a couple of days.