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August 26, 2008 Professor Robert A. Pastor, a leading proponent of North American integration, writes in the July/ August 2008 issue of 'Foreign Affairs' that, "The April summit meeting (in New Orleans) was probably the last hurrah for the SPP. The strategy of acting on technical issues in an incremental, bureaucratic way, and of keeping the issues away from public view, has generated more suspicion than accomplishments. The new president will probably discard the SPP." Why? According to Pastor, "It is clear that the Bush administration’s incremental, quiet, business-based approach has not succeeded in promoting economic integration or closer collaboration with the United States’ neighbors. Instead, it has raised some legitimate concerns and provoked a nativist backlash. It was a mistake to allow CEOs to be the only outside advisers on deregulation and the harmonization of remaining regulations. Civil society and legislatures must be heard on these issues, which are less about business than about how to pursue environmental, labor, and health goals." What next then? Pastor writes, "For the last eight years, North America’s experiment in integration has stalled. The new president needs to restart the engine." What does Pastor propose? "The alternative approach needs to start with a vision of a North American Community and some institutions—quite different from Europe’s - designed to pursue a bold agenda that includes a customs union, a North American commission, a North American investment fund, and a common team of customs and border guards to man (sic) the borders and the continental perimeter. To move toward these goals, the next president should designate a national adviser for North American affairs, who would chair a cabinet-level committee to formulate a comprehensive plan and to help the president negotiate the difficult tradeoffs between special interests and national and continental interests. Instead of refighting the NAFTA debate, this comprehensive approach would lay the foundation for a new North America." He adds, "The three leaders should institutionalize summit meetings at least annually, and they should establish a North American commission composed of independent and distinguished leaders from academia, civil society, business, labor, and agriculture and with an independent research capacity. The commission should offer continental proposals to the three leaders. The leaders would continue to be staffed by their respective governments, but they would respond to a continental, rather than a dual-bilateral, agenda. The commission should develop a North American plan for transportation and infrastructure and plans on labor, agriculture, the environment, energy, immigration, drug trafficking, and borders." Surprisingly, Pastor also writes, “A majority of the publics in all three countries would prefer 'integrated North American policies' rather than independent national policies on the environment and border security, and a plurality feel the same way about transportation, energy, defense, and economic policies." In that regard, he may want to read the quite contrary findings in our 'Not Counting Canadians' report at http://www.canadians.org/integratethis/backgrounders/notcounting/index.html.
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