What is the Security and Prosperity Partnership?

The fourth Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) summit was held in New Orleans last April 21st and 22nd.

At these summits, policies affecting North America's future have been discussed with no congressional oversight or public input. President Bush, Prime Minister Harper, and President Calderón have been meeting since 2005 to determine policies ranging from water rights in Canada to a counter-drug aid package for Mexico worth 1.4 billion dollars.

The trilateral SPP was first announced on March 31, 2005 in Waco, Texas. Its mission is to increase continental economic integration and coordinate security systems. What has been coined as a "NAFTA-plus" agenda will be hitting people on the local level by affecting transportation, migration, and the environment, to name just a few areas.

This anti-democratic effort is backed by corporate leaders and senior government officials from each country. There are currently ten working groups on the SPP prosperity agenda and three on the security agenda that have set measurable goals and specific implementation dates. Some of the issues that these working groups cover include:

• Manufactured Goods & Sectoral and Regional
• Competitiveness
• Movement of Goods
• Energy
• Environment
• E-Commerce & Information Communications Technologies
• Financial Services
• Business Facilitation
• Food and Agriculture
• Transportation
• Health

Who is behind these agendas? The North American Competitiveness Council, comprised of the region's largest companies. 30 of these corporate entities have had privileged access to the summits and have made recommendations to be considered by Bush, Harper and Calderón. Many of these recommendations affect automotive, transportation, and manufacturing services, the idea of a NAFTA plus agenda being to reduce business costs and eliminating barriers to trade in North America.

We can base our predictions for a NAFTA-plus agenda on what history has already taught us. In Mexico, for instance, the employment rate was lower in 2004 than in 1990 according to the ILO, and the number of people living in poverty has been rising continuously, from 79,167,000 in 2000 to 85,016,000 in 2004. The consequent spike in migration across the northern border has occurred in conjunction with a loss of over one million U.S. manufacturing jobs since NAFTA was implemented—a 65 percent loss of employment in the industry. Meanwhile, instead of an expected US trade surplus with Mexico and Canada, the trade deficit grew, from $9 billion in 1993 to almost $90 billion in 2003. As in Mexico and the U.S., Canada saw its income gap widen, its stable, full-time employment decrease, and its social safety net mangled.

While there are many unknowns associated with the SPP and its NAFTA-plus agenda, what is known is that its members are not designing democratic, locally controlled policies for the future of North America. The policies promoted by Bush, Harper, and Calderón are sure to be more of the same and worse. We need to push for a Genuine Prosperity and Human Security agenda and for an urgently needed North American conversation on democratic integration from below.

Resources

April 23, 2008
Laura Carlsen
Americas Program, Center for International Policy
Dissecting the North American Summit Joint Statement: Bush's Last Stand
On April 22, Presidents George W. Bush, Felipe Calderón, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper concluded a trilateral summit in New Orleans...The three leaders reiterated their unconditional support for NAFTA and the SPP, urged passage of the Colombia FTA, and argued for passage of the Plan Mexico aid package.

April 18, 2008
Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
Congressional Dear Colleague letter signed by 14 U.S. representatives against the convening of the New Orleans SPP summit.

The People's Summit in New Orleans: Find out more information about how people are uniting and organizing against the convening of the fourth SPP summit.

February 1, 2008
Miguel Pickard
Bulletins of CIEPAC
Ten Easy Questions and Ten Tougher Ones Regarding the SPPNA

Septemeber 2007
Manuel Pérez Rocha
Alliance for Responsible Trade
Divergent U.S. Critiques of the Security and Prosperity Partnership: From Anti-Immigrant to Pro-Democracy Perspectives

August 24, 2007
Laura Carlsen
Americas Program, Center for International Policy
Extending NAFTA's Reach




Several purported protesters were actually police provocateurs. Click here to see the Canadian Union of Public Employees' (CUPE) pictures of the demonstration in Montebello



August 23, 2007
Naomi Klein
The Nation
Big Brother Democracy

August 20, 2007
Ted Lewis
Global Exchange
San Francisco Chronicle
Three Amigos summit takes up the future of North America

August 20, 2007 CBC News
In Depth: Security and Prosperity Partnership

July 28, 2007
Pablo Bachelet
The Miami Herald Exclusive
U.S., Mexico near deal on drug war aid

March 22, 2007
José Antonio Almazán González
La Jornada
ASPAN: riesgo para México

May 23, 2007
Laura Carlsen
Foreign Policy in Focus
NAFTA: Kicked Up a Notch

The "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" FOIA documents

• Section I - SPP Contact Lists and Organization Charts

• Section II - SPP Regulatory Cooperation Symposium

• Section III - SPP Meeting with Commerce Secretary Gutierrez, March 15, 2006

• Section IV - Launch of the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC), May 26, 2006

• Section V - Final Recommendations of the U.S. Section of the NACC

• Section VI - Launch of the NACC with SPP Ministers, June 15, 2006

• Section VII - NACC Documents

• Section VIII - Prof. Robert A. Pastor's Seminar on Building a North American Community, September 21, 2005

Take Action

Sign a Petition to Elected State Officials

Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington

See The Alliance for Democracy for more information. Sign a petition to elected state officials to urge your state to pass a resolution on the SPP.

Write NACC members:

U.S. Representatives: