North American Union - History

History

Since at least the mid-19th century, numerous concepts for a union among Canada, Mexico and the United States, some including Caribbean, Central American and South American countries, have been proposed, such as the North American Technate. Following the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Maastricht Treaty going into effect there was speculation about the formation of a North American Union, similar to the European Union created by Maastricht, being a possible future step for the region. Several proposals for continental integration of North America advocated the creation of a union styled after the European Union, though many academic and business groups advocated less dramatic changes involving the formation of a customs union or common market.

While serving as a policy adviser to the presidential campaign of Vicente Fox during the 2000 general election in Mexico, Jorge Castañeda, influenced by academic Robert Pastor's ideas on deepening integration of NAFTA, encouraged Fox to include policies on integration as part of his campaign. Before and after the election Fox made appearances on several U.S. news programs advocating greater integration including a plan to open up the U.S.-Mexico border within ten years. Some in the United States saw this proposal for open borders as a call for or inevitable step towards a "North American Union" and received it with a mixture of praise and criticism, with critics like Pat Buchanan suggesting it would mean an end to U.S. sovereignty.

During an interview for Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy in 2001, after he was elected president, Fox said that he sought with the United States a "convergence of our two economies, convergence on the basic and fundamental variables of the economy, convergence on rates of interest, convergence on income of people, convergence on salaries." He suggested this might take as long as 20 years to be realized, but the ultimate "convergence" he saw between the United States and Mexico would allow them to "erase that border, open up that border for free flow of products, merchandises, capital as well as people". Fox cited the success he claimed countries like Ireland and Spain had in modernizing their economies and raising the standard of living for their citizens by joining what is now the European Union. Vicente Fox also proposed a plan to U.S. President George W. Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien that he said would move the North American continent towards an economic union based on the example of the European Union. Fox's proposal was rejected by President Bush, with Fox later alleging in his book Revolution of Hope that the White House wanted him to "stop raising hackles" by talking about a North American Union.

Later, amid a push for greater integration and concerns about the impact of heightened security on trade relations following the September 11 attacks, an effort was organized in 2003 by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, and the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations called the Independent Task Force on North America. Several weeks before a meeting of North American leaders on March 23, 2005 the Task Force issued a press release and a statement from the Task Force's chairmen calling for deeper integration of NAFTA to form a North American Economic and Security Community by 2010.

A January 2005 diplomatic cable that was released by Wikileaks in 2011 includes discussion by U.S. government officials about the best approach to North American integration based on an assessment of Canadian views. The cable suggested a new "North American Initiative" that would address goals in the areas of "security" and "prosperity" through incremental measures, saying such a proposal would get the most support from Canadian policymakers. It notes many Canadian economists supported "ambitious" goals like a single market, with some supporting a monetary union, but that they believed the incremental approach was more appropriate at the time. Canada's central bank governor is quoted in the cable as having said that a monetary union is "an issue that should be considered once we have made more progress towards establishing a single market." The National Post's Robert Hiltz described the cable in June 2011 as discussing "the obstacles surrounding the merger of the economies of Canada, the United States and Mexico in a fashion similar to the European Union."

Two months later at the March meeting of North American leaders the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) was formed. It was described by the leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United States as a dialogue to provide greater cooperation on security and economic issues. In response to later concerns, a section was put up on the initiative's site clarifying the SPP was not a legal agreement, that the initiative "does not seek to rewrite or renegotiate NAFTA", and that the partnership itself "creates no NAFTA-plus legal status." A number of academics and government officials at the time viewed the SPP as moving North America towards greater integration.

In May of 2005, the Task Force published a report praising the SPP initiative and pushing for greater economic integration by 2010. They repeated their call for the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter." In the report the Task Force said that a North American Community, which would be similar to the European Community which preceded the EU, should not rely on "grand schemes of confederation or union" and did not suggest a supranational government or a common currency. The Task Force’s recommendations included developing a North American common market and security perimeter, among other common goals.

The SPP initiative was officially ended on August 2009 though the North American Leaders' Summit and most of the working groups set up under the initiative remain active. Several advocates of integration saw the SPP as being insufficient. One criticism was that the governments lacked a "vision of what North America might become" and as such did not provide the proper context that would allow the initiative to deal with barriers to deeper integration.