Pushing several 'NAFTA Superhighways' from Canada to Mexico, these special interests hope to boost large amounts of long-distance truck traffic they hope will result from the North American Free Trade Agreement.

But this new, lesser-known NAFTA-related scheme could possibly be even more disastrous than the trade agreement itself. Yet the media outside Indiana have generally steered clear of this international issue. Of the various proposed routes, the extension of Interstate 69 would be the most damaging and costly NAFTA Superhighway. The I-69 presently extends from Flint, Mich., to Indianapolis. But as a superhighway it would plow through farmlands, forests, and hundreds of communities in eight states plus Canada and Mexico. In southern Indiana alone, over 200 farms would be bisected by the I-69 NAFTA Superhighway, including nine Amish farms. Over 1,000 acres of forests would be destroyed for the Indianapolis-Evansville right-of-way alone.

"I would like you [of the press] to understand the magnitude of what this means. It is transcendent, it’s something that goes well beyond the relationship we have had up to now." —President Vicente Fox, regarding NAFTA Plus, onboard the presidential plane returning to Mexico from George W. Bush’s Crawford ranch, March 2005.1

NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) has been in effect almost 12 years and a new stage, NAFTA Plus, is in the works, referred to as "deep integration," particularly in Canada. The elites of the three NAFTA countries (Canada, the United States, and Mexico) have been aggressively moving forward to build a new political and economic entity. A "trinational merger" is underway that leaps beyond the single market that NAFTA envisioned and, in many ways, would constitute a single state, called simply, "North America."

The initial steps for the creation of a new North American space have already been taken. Mexico, in particular, will have to make the most far-reaching adjustments, and face difficult questions regarding national identity and the nation’s future. In Canada, although the issue is generally unknown, there is now lively discussion within academic settings and NGOs.2 In the United States, the issue is still off the screen.

The building of a new North American space is rapidly progressing, yet lacking civil society consultation and legislative oversight. By doing away with treaties or accords, the three chief executives are achieving deeper integration through NAFTA Plus by signing "regulations," thus foregoing the bother of seeing their plans bogged down in one of the legislatures.

The primary objective, a trinational security perimeter, is being consolidated. Future steps include the construction of a new economic space, beginning with a customs union, then a common market (further liberalizing labor mobility between Canada and the United States, but restricted from Mexico), and finally, a monetary and economic union.42

The Bush Administration has decided to "back-door" the creation of a North American Union political entity that would effectively erase our borders with Mexico and Canada and create several super-regional governing bodies that would have jurisdiction over the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court.

This analysis has been advanced by economist Miguel Pickard at the Center for Economic and Political Research for Community Action (CIEPAC) in Chiapas, Mexico.

We have also pointed to the Council on Foreign Relations' (CFR) task force report entitled "Building a North American Community" that contains the blueprint for creating a North American Union by 2010. The CFR task force report makes clear that a fundamental goal of the contemplated North American Union would be to redefine boundaries such that the primary immigration control will be around the three countries of the North American Union, not between the three countries. A key adviser to ITF (independent task force) was Robert Pastor, director of the Center for North American Studies at American University.

Pastor also advocated the creation of a new currency, the "Amero," to replace the U.S. dollar, the Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso, much as the Euro replaced the currencies of the individual participating countries. The creation of the Amero had first been proposed by economist Herbert Grubel in a 1999 report to the Canadian Fraser Institute calling for a "North American Monetary Union."

So Texas will be the Crossroads of the New North America and Gainesville will end up looking something like Kansas City or Detroit, as a massive terminal of two Texas NAFTA Corridors (north/south & east/west), complete with all the ancillary facilities for people and freight, an international center for international trade, and a huge warehouse district for giant retailers.