Toward a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World for the New (Paperback)

by Robert A. Pastor (Author)
Key Phrases: two northern neighbors, trilateral approach, sectoral plans, North America, European Union, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
"The United States, Canada, and Mexico need to modernize our relationship if we want the 21St Century to improve on the past. The three countries of North America already have a larger market than the European Union, but we have not begun to explore our potential as a diverse community. Robert Pastor's book offers a wealth of new ideas and proposals for constructing a North American Community and lifting all of the people of the entire continent"
--Vicente Fox, President of Mexico.

The Mexican peso crisis struck in late December 1994, coinciding with a new Mexican administration and the end of the first year of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The crisis poignantly highlighted the success and the inadequacy of the treaty-success in the expansion of trade and capital flows, and inadequacy in institutional capacity. The Canadian, Mexican, and US governments defined the agreement so narrowly that they failed to devise a mechanism that could monitor, anticipate, plan, or even respond to such a serious problem. The new president of Mexico, Vicente Fox Quesada, has boldly proposed transforming the free trade area into a common market like Europe's. This has evoked lukewarm responses from the Bush and Chrétien administrations, which have not yet developed ways to cope with the new problems stemming from accelerated social and economic integration or to take advantage of North America's opportunities.

In this visionary study, Robert A. Pastor seizes Fox's idea and maps out the paths toward making it a reality. He analyzes NAFTA's success and shortcomings, extracts lessons from the European Union's 40 years of reducing disparities between rich and poor countries, and proposes ways that NAFTA can adapt and incorporate those lessons. The centerpiece of the book is a detailed proposal and specific recommendations for new institutions and "North American policies," including plans for infrastructure and transportation, immigration and customs, a unified currency, and projects aimed to lift the poorer regions. The author addresses issues of sovereignty and national interest and concludes with a look ahead toward a Free Trade Area of the Americas.

This book is the first of its kind to propose a detailed approach to a North American Community - different from the European Common Market but drawing lessons from its experience. It will be of considerable interest for policymakers in the region as well as researchers and students of international political economy, world trade, and foreign affairs.

About the Author
Robert Pastor is the Goodrich C. White Professor of Political Science at Emory University. From 1985-98, he was a fellow at the Carter Center and founding director of the Latin American and Caribbean Program, the Democracy Program, and the China Elections Project. Combining a career of scholarship and policymaking in government and nongovernmental organizations, Dr. Pastor served as national security advisor on Latin America (1977-81) and organized international delegations to mediate elections in 20 countries, including Mexico. Dr. Pastor was a Fulbright Professor in Mexico and the Straus Visiting Professor at Harvard University. He has written 13 books, including Exiting the Whirlpool: U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Latin America and the Caribbean (Westview Press, 2001).

Product Details

• Paperback: 207 pages
• Publisher: Peterson Institute; illustrated edition edition (August 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881323284
• ISBN-13: 978-0881323283
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #691,910 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This makes me sick!!!, July 12, 2006

By	J. Vesper (Kansas City) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I cannot believe what this guy is proposing!! I am going to pass this around as further ammunition that the federal government is not a government for, of, and by the People. The New American Century has only just begun.

But opposition is mounting. Perhaps the most blistering criticism has come from Lou Dobbs of CNN - a frequent critic of Bush's immigration policies.

"A regional prosperity and security program?" he asked rhetorically in a recent cablecast. "This is absolute ignorance. And the fact that we are -- we reported this, we should point out, when it was signed. But, as we watch this thing progress, these working groups are continuing. They're intensifying. What in the world are these people thinking about? You know, I was asked the other day about whether or not I really thought the American people had the stomach to stand up and stop this nonsense, this direction from a group of elites, an absolute contravention of our law, of our Constitution, every national value. And I hope, I pray that I'm right when I said yes. But this is -- I mean, this is beyond belief."

AMEN.

Recently, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review questioned the unchallenged momentum toward merger.

"Will Americans trade their dead presidents for Ameros?" the newspaper asked in an editorial last month.

The paper chided efforts at replacing the U.S. and Canadian dollars and Mexican peso with "the amero" - a knockoff of the euro - along with the building of "a looming NAFTA-like superstate." Citing the meeting between the three national leaders at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, in March 2005, the editorial warned: "Canadians, Mexicans and Americans who value the sovereignty of their respective countries should be concerned."

The Tribune Review editorial saw synergy between the plans of the national leaders and the ambitious agenda of the Council on Foreign Relations - seen by many as a kind of secretive, shadow government of the elite. The CFR issued a bold report in the spring of 2005, shortly after the joint announcements in Waco by Bush and his counterparts.

"The Council on Foreign Relations published a report in May -- "Building a North American Community" -- calling for, among other things, redefining the borders of the three nations, creating a super-regional governance board and the North American Paramilitary Group to ensure that Congress does not interfere with whatever the trilateral union feels like doing," said the paper. "Must the Bush administration happily sacrifice every shred of American sovereignty for the greater good of the New World Order?"

In fact, the CFR report is a five-year plan for the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common "outer security perimeter."

Some see it as the blueprint for merger of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. It calls for "a common economic space ... for all people in the region, a space in which trade, capital and people flow freely."

The CFR's strategy calls specifically for "a more open border for the movement of goods and people." It calls for laying "the groundwork for the freer flow of people within North America." It calls for efforts to "harmonize visa and asylum regulations." It calls for efforts to "harmonize entry screening."

In "Building a North American Community," the report states that Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin "committed their governments" to this goal March 23, 2005, at that meeting in Waco, Texas.

Alan Burkhart, who describes himself as a free-lance political writer, cross-country trucker "and proud citizen of one of the reddest of the Red States - Mississippi," is another critic seething over these plans that seem to have a life of their own - with little or no real public debate.

"As time passes, American corporations will find it unnecessary to move their facilities out of the country," writes Burkhart. "Our already stagnant wages will be just as low as those of Mexico. The cultures of three great nations will be diluted. Our currency will be replaced with the 'Amero.' And, we'll be one giant step closer to the U.N.'s perverse dream of a one-world government."

Pastor also was vice chairman of the May 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task force entitled "Building a North American Community" that presents itself as a blueprint for using bureaucratic action within the executive branches of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada to transform the current trilateral Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America into a North American union regional government.

THATS RIGHT PEOPLE.. THE GOVERNMENT IS PLANNING THIS AND ISN'T EVEN TELLING US ABOUT IT. APPARENTLY WE ARE NOT WORTH NOTIFYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

27 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Traitor to US Sovereignty, Constitution, Supreme Court, July 12, 2006

By	Amy Herrmann - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It may be the biggest story of the 21st century, but few press outlets are telling it. In fact, until very recently, few in the U.S. were aware of the plans and even fewer denouncing what appears to be the implementation of an effort some have characterized as "NAFTA on steroids."

All American people should be very concerned at the prospect of a North American Union - and the end of hope for the free country our Founding Fathers laid before us. We must resist to the bitter end of need be and fight the push bu multinational corporations and elite bankers' push for a new world order combining elements of fascism/corporatism and and end-run around our sovereignty by unsurping the powers of Congress and the American Legal System.

Is President Bush's reluctance to control the border and enforce laws requiring deportation of foreigners who enter the country illegally part of a master plan to all but eliminate borders between the U.S., Canada and Mexico? You bet.

If President Bush's agenda is to establish a new North American union government to supersede the sovereignty of the United States, then the president has an obligation to tell this to the American people directly. The American public has a right to know.

Phyllis Schlafly, the woman best known for nearly single-handedly leading the opposition that killed the Equal Rights Amendment, sees a sinister and sweeping agenda behind the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.

"Is the real push behind guest-worker proposals the Bush goal to expand NAFTA into the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, which he signed at Waco, Texas, last year and reaffirmed at Cancun, Mexico, this year?" she asks. "Bush is a globalist at heart and wants to carry out his father's oft-repeated ambition of a 'new world order.'"

She accuses the president and others behind the effort of wanting to obliterate U.S. borders in an effort to increase the Mexican population transfer and lower wages for the benefit of U.S. corporate interests.

America: From Freedom To Fascism. (Unless we oppose it by any means necessary).

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars UNAMERICAN, December 1, 2007

By	Luis Marques - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This man is proposing the end of America and the end of our Constitution...this is NOT a good idea. The bush administration has already stripped the constitution to its bones. WHat we need is the reinstate the constitution NOT abolish it by forming a new North American constitution as is being done in the European Union. VOTE RON PAUL.