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WASHINGTON - Someday soon, you'll be keeping ameros in your wallet, not dollars. The goods they buy will zip freely from Mexico to Canada on an enormous new road. And the United States will merge with its neighbors into a massive North American Union that reigns sovereign over more than 440 million people.At least that is the vision being raised by a small but vocal group of bloggers, activists and border-security hard-liners.As the U.S. has increased efforts to cooperate with Canada and Mexico on security and trade, and as the Bush administration has pushed immigration reforms that are extremely unpopular with many conservatives, opponents have become more convinced that North America is heading toward a merger. Although all three governments strongly deny any such plan, a series of private meetings by top leaders and a sweeping effort to rewrite regulations in all three countries aimed at smoothing cross-border relations have emerged as a lightning rod for speculation, criticism and fear.The goal of the initiative, known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership, is to ensure that the countries work together to keep weapons and terrorists from entering North America while making it easier for movement and commerce among all three nations. Business groups and advocates of free trade have pushed for even more cooperation. The meetings started in 2005 and grew out of long-standing, less-formal cooperation among the three nations. But critics say the partnership is just the first step in a much broader attempt to build a "North American Union" modeled after the political and economic integration that the European Union built. Those who fear a merger see signs everywhere. They cite the dollar's recent decline in value, increasing illegal immigration and attempts to expand free-trade areas in the Western Hemisphere. They also point to efforts to increase trade along Interstate 35, which runs straight up the middle of the United States from Mexico to Canada. In Internet postings about the partnership, I-35 has morphed into a "NAFTA Superhighway." An agreement in the works to allow Mexican trucks to drive into the U.S. is seen as another tip-off, as is the growing U.S. foreign-trade imbalance, even though China exports more to the U.S. than Mexico and is gaining on Canada.Former Mexican President Vicente Fox recently told CNN's Larry King that "long term, very long term," the goal of free-trade agreements could be a Western Hemisphere united by one currency."There's too much evidence. You've got too many things happening," said Jerome Corsi, a conservative activist and author of The Late Great U.S.A., a book that delves into some of the most alarming interpretations of the U.S.-Canadian-Mexican meetings. Still, to officials involved in the meetings, the idea that the partnership will move to infringe on individual countries' sovereignty is misguided. "I can tell you that that is categorically wrong, it is misleading, it is false, and that type of information, it just creates tension when it shouldn't because it's not true," Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said in an interview. "We want to do things that are common sense through regulations that will make our three countries more efficient and more productive. But this has nothing to do with sovereignty."In August, during a meeting with the Canadian prime minister and Mexican president, President Bush called the idea "comical" and a "political scare tactic," accusing his opponents of "(laying) out a conspiracy and then (forcing) people to try to prove it doesn't exist."To read more go to:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1024conspiracy1024.html
As in the days of Noah....
