The leaders of the United States, Canada, and Mexico met in New Orleans on April 21-22 for the fourth round of annual talks formerly known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership. However, the session carried the label North American Leaders’ Summit.

The likely reason for not calling it a Security and Prosperity Summit has to be widespread opposition to the SPP generated by THE NEW AMERICAN, its parent organization the John Birch Society, and like-minded activists. Increasing numbers of Americans — as well as a growing number of opponents in Canada — are rightly concerned that the SPP is actually a major step toward the creation of a North American Union.

On the first day of his visit, President Bush spoke very briefly at a reception hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Introduced by Chamber CEO Thomas J. Donohue, the president said he “strongly supports NAFTA” and was hugely disappointed when the House of Representatives refused only days ago to approve a Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

While introducing the president, Donohue claimed that NAFTA had created more jobs and benefitted trade, adding that it “should never be altered.” Asked later by NEW AMERICAN publisher and JBS President John McManus why he failed to mention “the loss of three million U.S. jobs because of NAFTA,” he snapped, “Anyone who believes that has distorted the figures.” Americans whose jobs were exported south of the border believe it.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed