Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America: The Corporate Vision

Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America: The Corporate Vision

Fact Sheet #1, 2/08
[Print, More SPP Info, SPP Action Alert, SPP Flyers]

Advancing the Corporatocracy
Because corporate leaders and the Bush administration encountered increasing resistance to so-called "free" trade agreements like NAFTA that ignore labor rights, public health and the environment, they made an "end run" around Congress and the public to advance the emerging corporatocracy – government of, for and by the corporate elite -- to create the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).

In 2005, the SPP was finalized without debate in Congress or public scrutiny when President Bush met with President Fox of Mexico and Prime Minister Martin of Canada in Waco, Texas where they shook hands on the deal. Their joint statement explains:

"The SPP builds upon, but is separate from, our longstanding trade and economic relationships…This partnership has increased institutional contacts between the three governments to respond to a shared vision of a stronger, more secure and prosperous region."

What is it?

• The SPP vision of security from internal and external threats is to create a military system dominated by the U.S. using "smart" surveillance and identification technologies to control the "legitimate" movement of people and goods across borders.
• This enhanced border security ensures that economic migrants seeking work are stopped at the borders, but essential energy and water resources flow across the borders protected by U.S. military power.
• The SPP vision of prosperity is production of "endless more" - sweat-shop produced goods from Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere carried by super-cargo ships docking at SuperPorts and moved inland along privatized transportation corridors to inland "dry" ports.

How does it operate?

• The SPP is being implemented by three "security" and ten "prosperity" cross-border working groups composed of corporate leaders and government officials from the three countries.
• The three security working groups report to the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and his Mexican and Canadian counterparts. The ten prosperity working groups operate under the US Secretary of Commerce and his Mexican and Canadian counterparts. They cover all major economic sectors: Food & Agriculture, Energy, Financial Services, Business Facilitation, E- Commerce and Information Communication Technologies, Environment, Manufactured Goods, Movement of Goods, Transportation, and Health.

Have you been invited?

The next SPP meetings will be in New Orleans, April 21-22. Have you been invited? Or, will you be kept away by high cyclone fences as at the SPP meeting in Montebello Quebec, August 2007?

Who does participate?

Members of the emerging corporatocracy, represented by major North American corporations and their trade and policy organizations working together with Departments of Transportation, Commerce and Homeland Security and with state and local officials who equate economic growth only with advancing the interests of corporate North America. As manufacturing and services are increasingly out-sourced, retail giants such as Wal-Mart emerge as the power brokers, along with transportation giants like UPS. Their interests are aligned with the military. As Thomas Friedman said back in 1999, "You can't have McDonalds without McDonald-Douglas." There is no transparency or public involvement as the grand SPP scheme takes shape. That's the way they want it.

What do they want to achieve?

Working together they promote their vision of economic growth is based on "endless more"-- imports of sweat-shop produced goods from Asia, Latin America and elsewhere – without considering the impact on global warming, depletion of the world's resources or pollution of our air, water and land. And they want:

• To create a fully integrated North American economic region to allow the free flow of goods
• To "harmonize" environmental and labor regulations based on the lowest common denominator in order to minimize labor costs and escape strict environmental regulations
• To ensure that water, energy and other natural resources for manufacturing and construction flow to the U.S., enriching the elites of all three countries, while delaying the impact of resource depletion on the U.S. standard of living
• To increase the global competitiveness of remaining U.S. manufacturers and service providers. Shaping and implementing the corporate SPP vision

Task Force on the Future of North America created in 2004, whose members are corporate leaders in U.S., Canada and Mexico. Its report, Building a North American Community, released in March 2005, influential for development of the SPP, sets forth an even broader vision - a North American common market, common security policies, common immigration and refugee systems, and a harmonized border system with biometric screening. The Task Force also recommends a North American energy and natural-resource security strategy and a common economic zone by 2010.

North American Future 2025 Project developed at the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), in collaboration with Canadian and Mexican counterparts. The Center is currently holding closed-door roundtable sessions with government officials and private sector stakeholders to "strengthen the capacity of Canadian, U.S., and Mexican administration officials and of their respective legislatures to analyze, comprehend, and anticipate North American integration."

North American Competitiveness Council (NACC), part of the SPP, created in 2006 after executives of UPS, Council of the Americas and North American Business Committee convened a "public and private sector dialogue" attended by 50 government officials and business leaders from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. NACC has 30 senior private sector representatives from Canada, Mexico and the U.S. The U.S. members are executives of Whirlpool, Gillette, Campbell's Soup, New York Life, General Motors, Mittal Steel USA, Merck, Chevron, General Electric, Wal-Mart, Lockheed Martin, and Kansas City Southern, a transportation holding company. The Council meets annually with the Security and Prosperity ministers to recommend actions related to the SPP and going beyond it on issues of border regulation, standards and de-regulation, transport, and energy integration. In February 2007, 51 recommendations were submitted reaching to 2010.

North America's SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc. (NASCO) a private membership coalition of corporate executives and local, state and Federal agency officials. Since NAFTA approval in1994, NASCO has worked to unite public/private sectors and secure Federal/state funds to build the Mid-Continent International Trade and Transportation Corridor through the U.S. heartland linking Interstate routes 35, 29, and 94, one of six north-south SuperCorridors from Mexico to Canada (See flyer #2).

The North American Inland Ports Network (NAIPN) supports building Inland Ports, and Kansas City SmartPort, Inc., a non-profit investor-based organization of both public and private members, is creating a vast Inland Port for warehousing and re-distribution of goods, one of the largest Inland Port Projects. (See #2)

For more on the SPP including action alerts, other flyers, poster, power point presentations and articles go to www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/html/eng/2378-AA.shtml

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Alliance for Democracy 781-894-1179 www.thealliancefordemocracy.org