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September 18th, 2006 | #61 | |
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Meet NAFTA 2.0
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September 19th, 2006 | #62 | |
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Much more to development
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September 19th, 2006 | #63 | ||
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September 20th, 2006 | #64 | |
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West/Dunn Productions-Hoodwinked:The Myth of Free Trade is Released
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September 20th, 2006 | #65 | |
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Creating the North American Union
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September 20th, 2006 | #66 | |
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High Priority Corridors @ AARoads.com
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September 20th, 2006 | #67 | |
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North American merger topic of secret confab
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September 21st, 2006 | #68 | |
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Bush Administration Advances on Path of Creating North American Union
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September 21st, 2006 | #69 | |
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North America confab 'undermines' democracy
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September 24th, 2006 | #70 |
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NAFTA highway or new silk road?
NAFTA highway or new silk road?
By William Hawkins September 24, 2006 On Sept. 7, the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), a government office established in March to increase cooperation between the United States, Canada and Mexico, released a progress report. Among its achievements was creation of an American Competitiveness Council to enhance North America's posture in the struggle for hotly contested global markets. Unfortunately, major events are already unfolding that will undermine this belated attempt to respond to ambitious rivals who have been piling up ever-higher trade surpluses at the expense of American-based enterprises. A flurry of articles over the summer painted the SPP as a step toward a North American Union that would submerge national sovereignty and open the U.S. to mass migration and political corruption. Human Events launched the story from the right, but it spread across the spectrum to the Daily Kos on the left. One focus of the articles was a planned corridor of highways and railroads from Mexico into the American Midwest dubbed the "NAFTA Highway." Some of the stories sought to revisit the debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement, but what is really behind this transportation network heralds the collapse of NAFTA and its dream of a stronger continental economy. NAFTA was supposed to combine cheap Mexican labor with U.S. capital and technology to improve competition with Asian rivals. C. Fred Bergsten and Jeffrey Schott, of the Institute for International Economics, testified to Congress in 1997: "We wanted to shift imports from other countries to Mexico -- since our imports from Mexico include more U.S. content and because Mexico spends much more of its export earnings on imports from the United States than do, say, the East Asian countries." Imports from Mexico grew rapidly in the 1990s on this model, but that is not what drives activity now. Today, the massive wave of imports from Asia is clogging West Coast ports and sending shippers and retailers searching for new routes to bring even more foreign products into the United States. Container ship traffic from China is growing by 15 percent a year. Between 2003 and 2005, annual imports from China rose by $92.2 billion, and from other parts of Asia by $41.0 billion. The final terminus of the planned transport network is the Kansas City, Mo., SmartPort. Its Web site proclaims, "The idea of receiving containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico may sound unlikely, but... that seemingly far-fetched notion will become a reality." The Chinese firm Hutchison Whampoa has partnered with Wal-Mart in a $300 million expansion of Lazaro Cardenas to handle perhaps 2 million containers annually by the end of the decade. The American Chamber of Commerce in Guangdong, China, has held seminars promoting this Mexican port. Punta Colonet, about 150 miles south of Tijuana, is also eyed for expansion to offload millions of additional containers filled with Asian imports. Kansas City Southern railway has bought the Mexican rail links and the State of Texas is negotiating with a Spanish firm to build a corridor of toll roads from the border heading north. While American-based manufacturers will continue to suffer under the barrage of Chinese goods, Mexican industry will be smashed flat by what should be called a new Silk Road rather than a NAFTA highway. The economic development goals of NAFTA are being abandoned. More than 600 of the maquiladoras assembly plants along the U.S.-Mexican border have relocated to China, leaving their Mexican workers behind. There is little chance for Mexican wages to rise if at $1.50 an hour they can be undercut by Chinese labor at 50 cents an hour. NAFTA was to be a way to lift Mexicans out of poverty and stem illegal immigration to America. A similar argument was made last year about the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). As South Carolina Republican Rep. Bob Inglis said during that floor debate, "I stand here convinced that it is the best strategy available to combine with our neighbors to the south to compete with the Chinese." The new transport plans make a mockery of these arguments, as they are aimed purely at helping China improve its competitive advantage over all North and Central American rivals. What is being built is truly a "Highway of Death" for both NAFTA and CAFTA. The resulting regional turmoil will be felt in the United States. It is well past time to rethink the sophistry of "free trade" with China. Instead of spending billions of private and public funds aiding Chinese traders, a major effort should be launched to rebuild and expand the North American production base, and to stem the massive outflow of capital and technology to Beijing, America's ambitious geopolitical rival. A key part of that effort would be to restructure NAFTA to create a true trade bloc that would drive Chinese goods off the continent, rather than into its heartland. http://washingtontimes.com/commentar...4008-4624r.htm |
September 24th, 2006 | #71 |
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A road of apprehension swerves superhighway idea
A road of apprehension swerves superhighway idea
By WILLIAM PETROSKI REGISTER STAFF WRITER September 24, 2006 The speculation is rampant: Mexican truck drivers, high on cocaine and working days without sleep, will haul cargo through Iowa on Interstate Highway 35, part of a North American free-trade superhighway. Some U.S. soil will be declared sovereign Mexican territory to handle freight, and thousands of additional American jobs will head south of the border. A mega-highway in Texas - six lanes for cars and four lanes for trucks, plus space for railroads and pipelines - will help funnel the massive shipments of goods up and down the North American corridor, from Mexican ports through the central United States to Canada. Is this truth or fiction driven by Internet conspiracy theorists? Iowa business and government leaders acknowledge they are promoting existing Interstate highways 29, 35 and 94 as a free-trade corridor linked to the North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA. The Iowa Department of Transportation is a charter member of the North American SuperCorridor Coalition, based in Dallas, Texas, and the Iowa Motor Truck Association, representing the state's trucking industry, is a strong supporter. The Iowa leaders reject the idea, though, that they are promoting plans that would undermine the state's economy, threaten the jobs of Iowa workers or jeopardize highway safety. Questions have been repeatedly raised about the superhighway corridor plans by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and conservative online publications, such as Human Events and Worldnet Daily. "These people are conjuring up a globalist scheme that we are going to have this North American country. It is pretty hard to characterize these people as anything other than paranoid," said Dale Vander Schaaf, an Iowa DOT policy analyst who is treasurer of the North American SuperCorridor Coalition. The frenzy over the superhighway corridor has been so intense that Tiffany Melvin, the coalition's executive director, issued a public statement earlier this month trying to defuse critics. Although her organization has endorsed construction of the proposed Texas mega-highway, she blamed Internet "watchdog groups" for confusing her organization's mission. The coalition does favor increased supply chain efficiencies along existing I-35, I-29, and I-94, but there are no plans for a "mid-continent NAFTA superhighway," she said. Much debate has been prompted by Texas Gov. Rick Perry's endorsement of the "Trans Texas Corridor," which would include construction of a mega-highway parallel to I-35 within his state. The toll-road, twice the width of the existing interstate highway, is aimed at easing serious traffic congestion on existing I-35 in Texas. Texas also supports a 1,600-mile national highway project through eight states on Interstate Highway 69, but it wouldn't pass through Iowa. Tom Kane, executive director of the Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, participated in a conference in Winnipeg, Canada, in June sponsored by the North American Super Corridor Coalition. Kane said the idea of expanding I-35 in Iowa into a mega-highway has never been discussed. Instead, Iowans are seeking high-tech methods of managing freight and better cooperation to expedite exports of Iowa products on I-35 and I-29, he said. One example of modern trucking technology, known as "Prepass," is used in Iowa on I-35 and Interstate Highway 80. Trucks preapproved for safety standards and other requirements have electronic communications gear on their dashboards, allowing them to roll past highway weigh stations without stopping. Federal officials have directly awarded $2.25 million to the super corridor coalition "for the development of a technology integration and tracking project" to improve the security and efficiency of cross-border trade. "This is not a Mexican issue, a U.S. issue, or a Canadian issue," Kane said. "What we are talking about is keeping North America competitive against the European Union, South Asia, China, whatever. It is not about sending jobs to Mexico. The Mexicans are losing jobs to Asia. They are too expensive for business." In Kansas City, Mo., plans have been made to establish a Mexican customs facility to permit southbound trucks carrying U.S.-made products to quickly clear customs, avoiding logjams on the U.S.-Mexican border. But the first-of-its-kind idea, which is under final review by the U.S. State Department, has drawn fire from conservatives who claim the Kansas City facility may have to be considered sovereign Mexican land. Chris Gutierrez, president of Kansas City SmartPort Inc., a non-profit group promoting the customs facility, said the critics are wrong. The land would be owned by Kansas City, and the building owned by his organization. "There will not be any sovereign territory" for Mexico, he said. Iowa would benefit from the Mexican customs facility, and SmartPort wants to work with Des Moines-area officials to consolidate trucking shipments with the goal of expediting the flow of Iowa-made manufactured goods to Mexico, Gutierrez said. Kane of the Des Moines metro planning group said Iowa officials are aware of the proposed Mexican customs facility in Kansas City, but have not taken a formal stance for or against it. The Teamsters union has been a major critic of free-trade highway plans. An article published in August in the Teamster magazine detailed interviews with Mexican truck drivers who told how they drove for days without sleep, fueled by cocaine and methamphetamine while earning about $1,100 a month. Mexican truckers are now restricted to roads near the U.S. border. The Teamsters are concerned the Bush administration wants Mexican truck drivers to drive freely on all U.S. highways. Teamster President Jim Hoffa, in a Detroit News column, said plans for a NAFTA superhighway would "allow global conglomerates to capitalize by exploiting cheap labor and nonexistent work rules and avoiding potential security enhancements at U.S. ports." The problem is not Mexican truck drivers, but flawed trade agreements that pit worker against worker, he said. Ian Grossman, a spokesman for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in Washington, D.C., said talks are continuing between U.S. and Mexican officials about expanding cross-border trucking operations, but no decisions have been reached. "Opening the border has been and remains a top priority for the administration," he added. Scott Weiser, president of the Iowa Motor Truck Association, said he can't answer for certain whether Mexican truck drivers will be hauling freight on Iowa's highways, but he believes the public shouldn't be concerned. "No one will operate a truck in the United States who is less qualified than an American truck driver, period. Anyone who is operating here will be subject to the same drug testing, commercial driver's license, background checks, fingerprinting - all the things that go along with driving," Weiser said. http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pb...609240333/1033 |
September 25th, 2006 | #72 | |
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N. American students trained for 'merger'
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September 26th, 2006 | #73 | |
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$25-M log suit?
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I didn't know NAFTA regulations were already intact and in place ... Last edited by Robert Bandanza; September 26th, 2006 at 08:09 AM. |
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September 26th, 2006 | #74 | |
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Documents disclose 'shadow government'
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September 27th, 2006 | #75 | |
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September 27th, 2006 | #76 | |
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Texas Eagle Forum president: Fight Trans-Texas Corridor, North American Union
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September 28th, 2006 | #77 | ||
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Canada defends timber export rules
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September 28th, 2006 | #78 | |
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Top U.S. official chaired N. America-confab panel
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September 29th, 2006 | #79 | |
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WND Commentary How to bring manufacturing back home - Pat Buchanan
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September 29th, 2006 | #80 | |
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NAFTA has hurt living standards, think-tank says
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