North American Union - Robert Pastor, America's Self Appointed Economic Savior Speaks Out On Eave of North American Summit

By Xelan Bonn

WASHINGTON, D.C. – August 14, 2007

Kicking off a pretext to the NAU Summit in Montebello Quebec for a minor forward push on the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), the Hudson Instituted hosted panelist John Fonte (Hudson Institute), Barbara Kotschwar (Peterson Institute) and Robert Pastor (American University) Chaired by John O'Sullivan (Hudson Institute) in Washington D.C. yesterday.

Watching the proceedings there were two things that clearly came to mind regarding Pastor's orations: first, that he has zero concerns for the well being of Americans or their jobs; second, that he is an extremely artful and articulate salesman for his position--able to slip quite a large lump of poison onto a spoon that many happily swallow.

Kotschwar was clearly his ally and not a friend to anyone who interfered with the NAFTA Superhighway or giving Mexicans free rein of US roadways and American jobs. The focus is on cost and time reductions and in being competitive with China rather than focusing on the needs of Americans and the middleclass worker, or those of Canada.

Mexico and the subject of closing the wage gap between Canada, the US, and particularly Mexico was cleverly dodged through skirting replies by Pastor who refused to state whether the US would need to lower its wages in order to more closely align with Mexico and to shorten the gap between North America and China. 

Standards of living and keeping cultures intact were admitted issues with the populace of all three countries, but getting there through individual sovereignty and thinking was outmoded and seen as passé by Pastor, who believes that sovereignties should evolve while for the record stating that he never advocated something called a North American Union.

Fonte quickly rebuffed Pastor and quoted his past written statements on the issue and how his carefully worded threads may have avoided the use of the term North American Union yet in essence suggest the concept as his spoken path and belief, clearly pinning his tongue to both sides of a split-post.

All panelist appeared to agree that the only way forward for the SPP was going to be by forsaking an elitist pathway of working secretly and only with CEOs at the bureaucratic level and rather by working in an open forum that was more involving of the both the citizenry and, of course, the US Congress (assumed, also, the governments of the other two countries).

Pastor criticized the anti-NAU community who, he said, was raising a lot of misinformation on the subject and turning what should be a good thing into something else altogether.

Fonte, clearly an anti-NAU pundit and protector of the people noted that the key aspect of the SPP was largely centered on economics and business needs and not much on security, while Kotschwar tried to emphasize the need for greater security cooperation between all three countries, as did Pastor.

An audience member asked Pastor why he was promoting all sorts of games relating to an international parliament and super-world agency that over-saw all three countries and encouraged his students to make decisions that controlled all three governments from their mock-ups. The question drilled deeper suggesting that such mock-ups were indeed blueprints for the ultimate objective of the SPP, which is clearly the NAU as mounting evidence suggests. Pastor admitted that the  games were being used but clarified and covered his actions with rhetoric and semantics manipulation while not substantially rebutting the claims. He also suggested that the three countries set up an international parliament to oversee the SPP, which markedly mirrored the games but, as he claimed, was distinctly different.

In all, it is clear that Pastor promotes, for now, the first stage of a North America concept of free trade between Canada, the US, and Mexico (which he sees as a natural extension of NAFTA), and particularly the opening up of the border (not literally but by work visa action) to the free flow of labor (which is obviously the free flow of slave-pay Mexican labor into Canada and the US) in order to better promote business and hedge against international trade by becoming more competitive with China--all aspects that went unspoken. 

Pastor made a short case for the need to equalize the wages and standard of livings between the three countries in order to become more competitive with China. When questions by an audience member who suggested that if Mexico's wages dramatically rose to meet those of the US, then how would they be more competitive with China--Pastor dodged the question leaving the specter that what he actually meant was that Canada and US wages would have to be lowered closer to those of Mexico's in order for North America to remain more competitive with China.

Pastor fired his own salvo at US and Canadian workers saying that those who supported a 19th Century isolationist mentality were outdated,  that maintaining a footing on a free trade path was required of the new world economy. He was unable to provide concrete reasons why the US needed to lift all tariffs and have the US worker compete with countries like China rather than simply focusing on supplying the vast domestic needs of US citizens toward ensuring a good standard of living that had once made America great. Strong tariff systems helped the US remain insulated from cheap Third World labor that undermined domestic markets, wages, and standards of living for Americans and created the powerful tax basis which helped turn the country into a superpower. Free trade, on the other hand, is a model that has proven its ability to strip out the middleclass in those countries where it has been applied. These facts were not discussed or admitted by Pastor, who is clear the dupe of the large transnational corporations, which benefit from free trade (as opposed to workers).

It is clear that Pastor's ideas for the SPP are not well thought out regarding the workers of America or Canada or their standard of livings or cultural impacts from his recommend free flow of labor across all three countries. Third World countries with cheaper labor costs and much lower levels of infrastructure and social systems have much lower labor costs and environmental standards than do First World countries, so competing head to head with such countries means that wages in First World countries must fall along with environmental standards in order to be competitive. 

It was equally clear that the SPP was going to be significant stage in a transnational business attack on Americans and Canadians and that by the countries walking even one step down the SPP path, the door would be eventually opened for the dissolution of all three countries into a new sovereignty, hence the NAU. 

Pastor flatly denies this is the ultimate goal or that the SPP is but stage one of multi-staged plan; the layman's equivalent of a man putting his hand on woman's leg before moving upwards in creeping progress.

Pastor also recommended a super-fund, by which all three countries would provide major funding dollars (more than $20 billion per year by the US would have to be given away). Such monies would be used to lift Mexico up from Third World status and incentivize the Mexican government to revamp its laws, tax structure, and economy. There was no discussion as to why Canada and the US needed to come out of their pockets and pay for Mexico's expenses when Mexico was still listed as among the ten wealthiest nation's on the planet in terms of natural wealth.

Fonte supported good cooperation between the three countries but not at the expense of sovereignty, environment, and other detriments that were apparent in Pastor's plot for the SPP.

 ##