NAFTA "Expansion" Programs

The Security & Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), the NAFTA Superhighway, North American Union, and the North American Currency Union are four concepts that made significant headlines in 2007 and continue to raise heated debate today.  The four are considered together here because they each constitute ways to further integrate or harmonize operations between Canada, Mexico, and the United States using the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as a point of departure.

Whether these four concepts in fact exist or are imminent and what exactly they are trying to accomplish are themselves open to question.  That the SPP exists is a matter of fact at least (see its official website below), but the formation of a tri-national entity called a "North American Union" and any efforts to unite the North American currencies (nicknamed "the amero") appear to be purely theoretical propositions at the moment.  The idea of a NAFTA "Superhighway" is perhaps the least-understood concept, as shown in the disparity between sites such as StopSPP.com that portray it as a "four football fields-wide" highway currently in planning and the North America SuperCorridor Coalition website, which describes it as only a "slogan" to describe existing transportation routes.

NCSL has no policy on any of these programs; the Free Trade & Federalism policy provides the guiding principles for NCSL action in the trade arena.

However, state legislators around the country have found these issues crossing their desks.  As found in NCSL's State Trade Legislation Database, at least 16 resolutions were introduced in 14 state legislatures in 2007 regarding these four concepts.  Taken collectively, the resolutions' aims are overwhelmingly against the above-named programs and proposals, but as of yet only a few have obtained passage.

In order to aid state legislators separate fact from fiction in the debate, NCSL has gathered the following selection of websites that provide information about each of these aspects, grouped roughly by their perspective:

SPP Official homepage  Canadian Government SPP page  North America SuperCorridor Coalition (NASCO)  North American Forum on Integration (NAFI-FINA)	StopSPP.com  The John Birch Society  amerocurrency.com
The Nation article on the NAFTA "Superhighway"  Op-ed Article in the Hamilton News   "Trade Partnership Sparks Backlash" - Wall Street Journal; August 22, 2007	Wikipedia Entry on SPP  Wikipedia Entry on North American Currency Union (Amero)  Wikipedia Entry on North American Union  Wikipedia Entry on NAFTA Superhighway

For questions, please contact Paul Snow.

Updated January 9, 2008

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