North American Union Pros and Cons

I haven't been following this too well, so I've been reading up on the possible "merger of North America" and I can't see many reasons why, in general, this is a bad thing. I think this would be favorable to all three countries, both economically and socially. The only negatives I read on this are from simple die-hard patriots. As someone that travels between US and Canada frequently, I'm probably a bit biased here. But, I really want to hear everyone's side in this, and why this might be such a bad thing. I apologize if I am not very knowledgeable in this and/or if I sound too naive, but I see this as a very positive thing in any way that I look at it. A strong economic boost for the countries, cultural integration and understanding, a stronger military force, it just sounds good.

I figure that a lot of the negatives will mention that it gives the United States too much power. Well, I hope it would be much more unified than that, but either way, don't they already dominate too much? I mean, they could close all US businesses and corporations in Canada and Mexico and place an embargo and I'm fairly sure it will cripple those countries. So with this much power over these countries already, what's changing much? At least Canada and Mexico get good deals in this. So I'm just wanting to hear the real argument against, and everyone's opinion on this. (I searched and only found some news reports).

reply to post by MrAndy


I'm not sure where I stand on this; all I know is that North America will very likely be a union in all but name in the next decade or two, unless perhaps if the European Union collapses or some other major upheaval occurs. I don't know the intricacies of the economic relationships and how they would be affected by increased standardization; it does seem that increased military and security cooperation can be nothing but good, though. America's borders are vulnerable, so clearly, cooperating with the security of the only two countries that border America is beneficial.

I think the economic and security integration will be furthered, and then future political and monetary standardization will probably be worked toward. The first objective doesn't seem to be a full-fledged union, though; rather, the first step is "Building a North American Community," outlined in a report of that name. A primary reason that I'm skeptical about the whole North American community thing is because it has been organized from the top-down rather than developed from a demand from below. The Independent Task Force on the Future of North America wrote the above report, and the force was organized by the Council on Foreign Relations, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, and the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations. For this reason, it is easy to suspect that a planned NAU would benefit the constituents of these groups, but what about ordinary Mexicans, Americans, and Canadians? How will they be affected? A good case study is probably the European Union and its history, but I don't know much about it.

Edit: Good post, btw. A lot of other threads may have started with the premise that this is some sinister plot and immediately jumped into how North American integration is a bad thing. Kudos for approaching the topic with an open mind.

Edit again: The report "Building a North American Community" isn't free, unfortunately, but I do have a link to where you can buy it: [www.cfr.org...]. Also, you can look through the big-shots who were on the task force. Before that report, though, came a "Trinational Call for a North American Economic and Security Community by 2010," which just seems to be a press release by members of the task force. This, however, is free: [www.cfr.org...].

[edit on 7-9-2007 by Luap]

[edit on 7-9-2007 by Luap]