August 21, 2007
Memo From Mexico,
By
Allan Wall
What Is ASPAN
And Why Do Mexicans Oppose It?
Why do a growing number of
Americans oppose the SPP (Security
and Prosperity Partnership), the three-country
framework drawing the U.S., Canada and Mexico into a
closer union?
They oppose it because
the kind of continental integration it envisions
threatens
U.S. sovereignty and the primacy of
our Constitution.
But if merging with
Mexico and Canada would
destroy American sovereignty, what would it do to
the sovereignties of Canada and Mexico?
The interesting reality
is that in both Canada and Mexico, there is also
opposition to the SPP and related integration. Canadians
and Mexicans also see it as a threat to their
sovereignty! [For example, see
Will Canada become the 51st state? The Security and
Prosperity Partnership: what it's all about and what it
could mean for Canadians Kelly Patterson,
Vancouver Sun, August 18, 2007]
The vast body of American
cyber-literature on the topic almost completely
ignores Mexican opposition to the SPP. In fact, I have
seen some writers confidently state that there is no
opposition to the SPP in Mexico.
But there is.
Of course, we shouldn’t
imagine that anti-SPP Mexicans and Canadians have
exactly the same perspective as an anti-SPP American.
They don’t. But each one—for different reasons —sees the
SPP as a threat to their country.
Americans may rarely
think about Mexico. But
Mexicans see the U.S. as a powerful country that can
do anything it wants and constantly threatens
Mexican sovereignty. The U.S. is seen as
always on the verge of taking over Mexico.
It’s in that context that
many Mexicans view NAFTA: as a way for U.S.
business/government to exercise hegemony over Mexico.
And that’s how some view the SPP (or as it’s called in
Spanish, the Alianza Para la Seguridad y la Prosperidad de América del Norte—ASPAN).
Generally, the opposition
to SPP is found on the right in the U.S. and on the
left in Mexico.
For example, let's look
at this article in the left-wing Mexican newspaper
Jornada, by Jose Antonio Almazan, bluntly entitled
"ASPAN:
Riesgo para Mexico" (SPP—A Risk for Mexico) [March
22nd, 2007].
Almazan warns his readers
that
"Created the 23rd of March of 2005, by an accord of
the presidents of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, in
Waco, Texas… ASPAN (SPP) constitutes a grave threat
to [Mexican] national sovereignty, and…
constitutes an informal process leading to a new
international treaty at the margin of the
legislative power. In both senses, ASPAN (SPP) does
violence to the [Mexican] constitutional order."
Almazan continues,
explaining the organization of the SPP
"Under the rubric of ASPAN (SPP) and through working
groups led by the [Mexican] secretaries of the
interior, economy and foreign relations, and their
counterparts in Canada and the U.S., along with
representatives of private corporations of the three
countries, it has continued advancing in various
regulations, that later will assume the form of public
policies, harming the sovereignty of Canada and Mexico,
and in the exclusive benefit of the United States, and
of course, of the
private corporations regardless of nationality."
So Almazan believes that
SPP will hurt Canada and Mexico and will only help
private corporations and the U.S. That’s a common
complaint among anti-SPP folks in Mexico. They don’t see
it as a threat to our constitutional order, because they
think we’re too powerful to be threatened.
Another Jornada
article is entitled "SPP and NAFTA: Pretexts for U.S.
Militarism" [ASPAN
y TLCAN, Pretextos Para El Militarismo de Estados
Unidoes: Ceceña, Jornada,
April 18th, 2007]
The Bush administration
is now negotiating a
"Plan Mexico" to involve the U.S. military in
Mexico’s cartel wars. So in the future we can expect to
hear a lot more about this too.
One of the most
articulate Mexican critics of the SPP is Miguel Pickard,
Mexican activist and co-founder of the
Centre for Economic and Political Research for Community
Action (CIEPAC)
in Chiapas. (See
photo here.)
Pickard is against free
trade and other neoliberal policies, which he believes
have hurt Mexico. Pickard sees the
SPP as a way for the U.S. to dominate Mexico. (But
ironically, and significantly, Pickard was one of the
sources for the research of
American anti-SPP author Jerome Corsi.)
Pickard’s classic exposé
of the SPP is entitled
Se Avanza Hacia el
"TLCAN Plus" It's available in
English as
Trinational Elites
Map North American Future in "‘NAFTA Plus".
Pickard's article is
definitely worth reading. Here are some highlights:
"The
elites of the three NAFTA countries (Canada, the
United States, and Mexico) have been aggressively moving
forward to build a new political and economic entity. A
'trinational merger' is underway that leaps beyond the
single market that
NAFTA envisioned and, in many ways, would constitute
a single state, called simply, 'North America.'
Contrary to NAFTA, whose tenets were laid out in a
single negotiated treaty subjected to at least cursory
review by the legislatures of the participating
countries, NAFTA Plus is more the elites’ shared vision
of what a merged future will look like. Their ideas are
being implemented through the signing of 'regulations,'
not subject to citizens’ review. This vision may
initially have been labeled NAFTA Plus, but the name
gives a mistaken impression of what is at hand, since
there will be no single treaty text, no unique label to
facilitate keeping tabs. Perhaps for this reason, some
civil society groups are calling the phenomenon by
another name, the Security and Prosperity Partnership of
North America (SPPNA), an official sobriquet for the
summits held by the three chief executives to agree on
the future of 'North America.' The building of a new
North American space is rapidly progressing, yet lacking
civil society consultation and legislative oversight. By
doing away with treaties or accords, the three chief
executives are achieving deeper integration through
NAFTA Plus by signing "regulations," thus foregoing the
bother of seeing their plans bogged down in one of the
legislatures."
Pickard sees SPP and its
likely future not just as a threat to Mexico’s
sovereignty, but also as a severance of its historic
ties with Latin America:
"Deep integration would mean foregoing an
independent future. For Mexico it would forever cancel
the
Bolivarist dream of a united Latin America, with
Mexico spurning its historic relationship with the rest
of Latin America. The North American identity to be
forged would be spurious and forced. The right of
Mexicans to
decide the future of the Mexican nation is at
stake….Mexico and Canada are rapidly integrating with a
country that is in practice opposed to negotiating
fundamental differences, particularly with weaker
countries. "
Yet, Pickard still has
hope - and his prescription acknowledges that there are
Americans who oppose the SPP as well:
"The task before civil society in all three countries
is enormous.
Citizen organizations must begin a concerted effort
to understand the regulations signed to date and their
implications, in order to fight for their suspension.
Still, motives for optimism exist. Actions implemented
under the guise of NAFTA Plus by means of regulations
have proceeded unchallenged thus far, but their validity
lacks treaty status. As such, modifying or canceling
these undemocratic regulations would seem to be within
reach of an informed, organized, and mobilized civil
society and, hopefully, a united trinational civil
society."
An interesting proposal –
Pickard envisages a "united trinational civil
society" formed to prevent a trinational political
union!
How ironic that the SPP’s
architects might inadvertently encourage cooperation
among Mexicans, Americans and Canadians precisely to
oppose continental integration!
Similarly, the recent
statement by a Mexican congressman,
Cuauhtemoc Sandoval of the left-wing PRD,
expresses
the resistance to continental integration:
"We
[Mexicans] are taking
steps toward the integration of our economy, military,
energy and security with the United States. And [the
Mexican] Congress isn’t being invited to
participate."[Opposition
lawmakers grill foreign relations secretary, By
Jonathan Roeder/The Herald Mexico—El Universal
February 22, 2007]
Mexicans oppose the SPP
because they think it poses a threat to Mexican
sovereignty and the Mexican Constitution. Meanwhile,
American opponents of the SPP believe it poses a threat
to American sovereignty and our Constitution.
Both groups are right, as
are concerned Canadians fighting the SPP.
From the point of view of
Mexicans (and Canadians), SPP is a threat to their
sovereignty, because the United States would be the
overwhelming partner in the alliance.
But American
constitutionalists also understand that the SPP is a
threat to American constitutional government. It could
take power away from the U.S. constitution, granting it
to an unaccountable group of elite globalists of the
U.S., Canada and Mexico.
As
publicity continues to grow about the SPP, we can
expect more grassroots opposition in all 3 countries.
Anti-SPP Americans and anti-SPP Mexicans disagree on
many issues. But they have a common enemy.
A real patriot loves his country—and understands that
a foreigner loves his country also. Not everybody in the
world wants to become an American.
It reminds me of
C.S. Lewis, who
wrote in The Four Loves
"How can I love my home without coming to realize
that other men, no less rightly, love theirs? Once you
have realized that Frenchmen like
café complet just as we like
bacon and eggs—why good luck to them and let them
have it. The last thing we want is to make everywhere
else just like our own home. It would not be home unless
it were different."
American
citizen Allan Wall (email
him) resides in Mexico, with a
legal permit issued him by the Mexican government. Allan
recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq with the
Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are
archived
here; his FRONTPAGEMAG.COM
articles are archived
here his "Dispatches from
Iraq" are archived
here his website is
here.
