The North American Union Pt II

In my last article I spoke about how the North American Union is being planned and laid out before our very eyes, yet, for the most part, people remain either oblivious, or unwilling to accept it.

I would like to go a little deeper into the history of these type economic unions, and provide information on what the coming North American Union portends for you as Americans.

Economic Unions such as the North American Union and the European Union have been a goal of many for decades, maybe even longer. According to Share The Worlds Resources, http://www.stwr.net/content/view/717/154/;

"The WTO, IMF and World Bank have been major counterparts in the creation and management of the modern world economy. Their activities are endorsed by economically dominant governments and corporations who favor neoliberal policies and free-market solutions to global finance, trade and poverty reduction."

The goal of these groups is to equalize trade and standards of living for all the people of the world. If that means that the United States has to lower its standard of living so that other countries can raise theirs, so be it.

That concept is very similar to the concept of pure communism, in which the powers that be seek to establish a classless, stateless social organization where the people are all equal and all wealth is shared evenly. While in theory, communism may sound nice and rosy, since there would be no poverty, and everyone would be entitled to the same standard of living, it never works out. There is always someone, or some group, at the very top who controls things. This person or group are the ones who reap the profits and turn the rest of the people into slaves under a system that subverts the working class.

So it is with the concepts of economic unions. There is a small group, small when compared to the overall population of the planet, who control global finances and trade. This groups consists of international banking cartels, specifically the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Their goal was to create a trade organization that controlled trade between all nations.

Starting back in 1948, all the way up to 1994, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, (GATT) had control over much of the world trade. The original intention of GATT was to create a third institution to handle the trade side of the international economic cooperation, joining the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. This International Trade Organization (ITO) as a specialized agency of the United Nations.

This plan was very ambitious, as it extended beyond trade to include rules on employment, commodity agreements, restrictive business practices, international investments, and other services.

The members of GATT attempted to create this organization in Havana Cuba in 1947, less than a month after GATT was singed. Although the charter was signed it faced difficulties and opposition, especially by the U.S. Congress, (back when the Congress guts), even though the U.S. government had been one of the driving forces behind the agreement.

In 1994 the members of GATT succeeded in pushing through their plan. At the Uruguay Round they signed the Marrakesh Declaration which created the World Trade Organization. The WTO replaced GATT, although an updated GATT still exists as the umbrella for the WTO’s treaty for trade in goods.

All this information comes directly from the World Trade Organizations own webpage at
WTO.

An interesting point to notice is that not one of the Directors-General of GATT have been American. Two have been Swiss, and there has been one British, one Irish, one from New Zealand, one French, and even one from Thailand.

As I hinted upon in my previous article, NAFTA has not been as beneficial to the U.S. and Mexico as originally thought. The question comes to mind then, how effective have trade agreements, including NAFTA, GATT and the WTO been on implementing fair and equal trade, particularly in regards to how it affects workers in the United States.

As of this very moment the U.S. trade deficit stands at $495 billion dollars. That means we buy $495 billion more in foreign goods, than we export to be sold overseas.

There has been a significant loss of white collar manufacturing jobs in the United States. Since 2004 blue collar manufacturing jobs have risen only slightly, up 1.01%, although we are at a post WWII low for this category. White collar manufacturing jobs have dropped by 7.66%.

Source: “Seasonally Adjusted: Manufacturing, All Employees” and “Production Workers,” Employment, Hours and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National), Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S.. Department of Labor, Dept of Labor Statistics

Since President Bush took office, and proceeded with his Security and Prosperity Partnership, the U.S. economy has lost 3.2 million jobs, including 2.5 in manufacturing. President Bush may just surpass Herbert Hoover as presiding over the largest decline of total employment during his tenure as president.

AFL/CIO Statistics

While all these jobs are being lost by American workers, the Bush administration gives multimillion-dollar tax cuts to the wealthy, and at the same time supports these lopsided trade policies that encourage offshore outsourcing of, what were once good paying American jobs.

U.S. businesses cannot compete with the huge numbers of low paid workers, who work with no benefits and no workplace safety regulations.

The United States has a total population of just over 302 million people. India, where many of our IT jobs are being outsourced to has a population of over 1 billion, while China has a population of 1.3 billion. Those are both huge pools of low paid workers that our current trade policies are exploiting. While corporate profits may be on the increase, which helps stockholders, it is detrimental in the long run to the American workers who lose their jobs when their companies move production overseas.

In testimony, on July 22, 1999, before the Committee on International Relations Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade the following facts were presented. Testimony

“The growth in the trade deficit over the past two decades has destroyed millions of high-wage, high skilled manufacturing jobs in the U.S., and pushed workers into other sectors where wages are lower, such as restaurants and health service industries. When I appeared before this committee last spring, I summarized EPI forecasts that the Asia Crisis would lead to the elimination of one million jobs in the U.S., with most of the losses concentrated in the manufacturing sectors of the economy (Scott and Rothstein 1998). These job losses have begun to materialize, despite the continuing boom in the rest of the economy. The U.S. has lost nearly 500,000 manufacturing jobs since March of 1998, due to the impact of the rising trade deficit.”

“Trade deficits also have a direct impact on wages, especially for non-college educated workers, who make up three-quarters of the U.S. labor force. The other line in Figure 1 shows that the average real wage for U.S. production workers peaked in 1978, declining more or less steadily through 1996. Real wages have begun to increase in the past 3 years. However, the small upturn increased real wages by only 4.5%, not nearly enough to offset a decline of more than 11% since the 1978, nor to return workers to the path of steadily rising wages they experienced from 1950 through 1973.”

“What is responsible for the decline in U.S. wages? Trade is certainly one of the most significant causes, because it hurts workers in several ways. First, the steady growth in our trade deficits over the past two decades has eliminated millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs. As we showed in another recent EPI report, trade eliminated 2.4 million jobs in the U.S between 1979 and 1994 (Scott, Lee and Schmitt 1997). Growing trade deficits eliminate good jobs and reduce average wages in the economy. Since then, many more jobs have been lost to NAFTA and other sources of our trade problems, including China, and recently, Europe.”

So, if this is what our current trade agreements have wrought for the American worker, do you really think it is in your best interest that the leaders of Mexico, Canada, and the United States continue with their plans for the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or more plainly, a North American Union?

Anyone who argues against these trade policies is labeled an isolationist or protectionist. If protectionism refers to policies which protect business and living wages by restricting or regulating trade between nations, I am all for it. Look what has happened under the mantle of ‘free trade.’

People, you had better wake up. There are billions of workers in China and India who would be more than willing to take your job. If you don’t lose it to someone from China or India, consider this. The goal of the SPP, as declared by the document Building a North American Community, lays out plans for the free travel of both goods, and persons between the three participating countries. So I am sure that with the increase in the number of people from south of the border, your company will be able to find someone to do your job for you, at far less than you are paid.

If you think your government is concerned for your well being, you only need look at the history of free trade agreements and you will find they benefit only the companies who profit off the sales of the goods they produce. The workers always get hurt in the form of lost jobs or depreciated wages.

So you can sit back and watch your television shows while this SPP comes to fruition in the form of a North American Union, or you can get off your butts and begin demanding that your elected represent you, not some multinational corporation. The choice is yours, but not for much longer.