Re-zoning the World:

The Merging of the Americas in a New Global Order

 

By Carl Teichrib

 

“I campaigned vigorously on a free trade agenda…And I intend to vigorously pursue a free trade agenda.”

— President George W. Bush at a press conference during the Quebec Summit of the Americas.[1]

  

   One of the first major political events that President Bush was involved in when he took office was the Summit of the Americas, which was held in Quebec City, April 20-22, 2001. It was a noted occasion; America’s newest president was swinging into action with one of his main campaign platforms – an expanded trade program which would revitalize America’s slumping economy.[2] 

   Ironically, this “vigorously pursued” economic agenda is not the brainchild of the current administration. Bush’s push for hemispherical free trade was first expounded by his father, Bush Sr., who announced the Enterprise of the Americas Initiative on June 27, 1990.[3] Moreover, this trans-continental restructuring agenda was not placed into high gear by a Republican, but by a Democrat – President Bill Clinton.[4]

   In December, 1994, at a meeting in Miami, Florida, the Clinton administration launched a program of continental “economic integration,” which was put in motion after “the leaders of 34 countries in the Western Hemisphere pledged…to form a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).”[5]

   At that time, it was agreed that the deadline for the completion of FTAA negations was to be January 2005, with the FTAA coming into force by December of that year. This deadline, now only a short year and a half away, is still the target date. Moreover, Brazil and the United States – the two largest economies in each of their respective continents – are acting as co-chairs for this fast closing FTAA process, which relies on the consensus process, and must be “consistent with the rules and practices of the World Trade Organization.”[6]

   When, not if, the 34 nation FTAA sees completion, the global economic clout of this new trading block would be colossal. Recently, the US General Accounting Office reported that this agreement, once operational, “would cover about 800 million people and about $13 trillion in production of goods and services.”[7]

   Conversely, the European Union encompasses some 350 million citizens, and Canada – which is the largest supplier of raw materials to the US and is America’s most important trading partner[8] – recently recognized the EU zone as the world’s largest single market. However, when the FTAA passes, the Western Hemisphere will outstrip the EU both in terms of population and trading power, thereby competing on a scale previously unheard of in the global marketplace. Of course, the next major expansion of the EU and the development of a comprehensive Asian trading block, or the creation of a hybrid Euro-Asian arrangement, could certainly outstrip the Americas in the long-term. 

   This international-competing regionalism was something that President Bush recognized while at the Quebec Summit. Bush, speaking on behalf of the Americas concept of globalization, explained,

 

…we have a choice to make. We can combine in a common market so we can compete in the long-term with the Far East and Europe, or we can go on our own. I submit, and I suspect the other leaders will echo with me – I hope they do, at least – that going on our own is not the right way…[9]                      

 

   Competing with Europe or the Far East by creating a Free Trade zone of the Americas is arguably more important to the United States than to any other country in the Western Hemisphere. This is particularly striking when one analysis the growing clout of the European Central Bank and the emergence of the Euro currency as an international alternative to the US dollar, especially as it relates to potential shifts in global energy markets.[10] Hence, if the US is going to be “the first, only, and last truly global superpower” – as long time geo-strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski described in his policy handbook, The Grand Chessboard[11] – the United States will need a hemispherical approach in order to help ensure its “primacy” on the world stage, specifically as economic competition increases from integrated trading blocks around the world.[12]

   Regardless of how the FTAA is viewed in light of US economic interests, its development will unquestionably alter trade and business patterns for every country involved. Furthermore, it will effectively form a solid basis for more advanced “global programs.” Former United Nations Assistant-Secretary General, Robert Muller, expressed as much to a group of educators and students during the 1997 Global Citizenship 2000 Youth Congress,

 

…let us create regional continental units…the European Union, an American Union, which I’ve been pushing too – and this how you got the trade agreement between the US and Canada. And then we’ll take the five continents, and the five continents, if they’re united, will create a World Union.[13]           

 

   Professor Philip Bom, writing on this issue more than a decade ago, warned of regionalism within this larger international context,

 

   The European community will be transformed into an all-European union. So, too, the Americas will be transformed into an integrated region of the new global order…

   What is new is the drive and determination to develop common markets for political economic integration. Correspondingly, there is the determination to institutionalize interdependence: a new global order through regional, bilateral and multilateral regulations…and through joint parliamentary bodies.[14] [italics in original]

 

Securing the Americas

 

   Not surprisingly, some FTAA strategists are also calling for a hemispheric security platform. In fact, the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute released a report last year outlining just such a proposal.

   Colonel Joseph Núñez, a professor in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the US Army War College, published a monograph which detailed the creation of separate North and South American military units under the command and control of the Organization of American States[15] – the chief organization which oversees hemispherical cooperation.

   Núñez’s proposal would resurrect the World War II joint forces concept known as the First Special Service Force (FSSF). This renowned assault group, which was formed in 1942 and consisted of Canadian and American soldiers, was “recruited from lumberjacks, forest rangers, hunters, woodsmen, game wardens, prospectors, and explorers”[16] – adventurous men known for their strength of character and resourcefulness. Likewise, the new FSSF would be a “resourceful” unit that “reflects the realities of the 21st century and is attuned to regional security virtues and challenges,” including drug trafficking operations, maneuvering against guerrilla insurgencies, responding to natural disasters, “upholding peace,” and even offering itself as a supplementary force to United Nations peacekeeping missions.[17]   

   According to this revised FSSF plan, each nation in the hemisphere would retain their military forces as they now exist, however, two new continental FSSF units would be created from each nation’s military branches, starting with the countries that are currently most dominant in their respected regions. Hence, there would be a trans-North American security unit made up of forces principally from the US, Canada, and Mexico (dubbed FSSF-N), and the South American trans-continental force would incorporate military personal and equipment from Brazil, Argentina, and Chile (FSSF-S). 

   These units, according to Núñez, are vital to the larger security needs of an economically integrated hemisphere,

           

This new security architecture must be empowered to act decisively and competently. After all, if we – the states of the region – are going to construct a hemispheric economic community, there had better be a security community that can protect it, and without delay. In essence, the new security architecture must have standing multinational forces that can handle humanitarian assistance missions, peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and other small scale contingencies.[18]

 

   Douglas Lovelace, the Director of the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, also recognizes the connections between continental economic integration and a grand security structure – one in which the US Army plays a paramount role as a multinational player,

 

   With current concerns about the Free Trade Area of the Americas and the strength of democratic regimes, along with the growing need for homeland – even hemispheric – security, it is most important that we seriously consider new ways to respond to our strategic situation…A new security community must be developed to reflect our emerging economic community…

   The mission of the U.S. military, and the Army in particular, is to be prepared to allocate resources for this new security system that complements many transformation themes already embraced, yet in a truly multinational manner…[19]

 

   Understand, the Strategic Studies Institute is not the only agency looking at linked economic and hemispheric security structures. Other organizations and institutions which are examining “markets and security” concerns include the Organization of American States, the Inter-American Defense Board, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, and the US National Defense Panel. Even the US Homeland Defense Command has “evolved into a command structure that encompasses North America.” Núñez notes that this shift “appears to have come from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top aids…”[20]

                             

Convergence

 

   At this point there are a number of major issues that need to be overcome before the FTAA can effectively emerge in 2005. Agriculture issues are at the top of the list, along with energy and “democratization” concerns; and the process itself is somewhat at the mercy of the World Trade Organization and their decisions.[21] However, the agenda of hemispheric integration is fast advancing, with the next major Summit of the Americas slatted for this November in Miami, Florida. Furthermore, according to the US Trade Representative – the governmental body overseeing the FTAA process – USTR is “prepared to move step by step toward hemispheric free trade if others turn back or simply are not ready.”[22]

   In other words, the 2005 deadline has to be met. As Robert Hillmann warned in his report Reinventing Government, “In order for international government to succeed, national government must first undergo radical change.”[23] There is no doubt that the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas will alter governing institutions on two continents. Commerce, banking, and investment laws will have to fit within a new hemispheric approach; foreign policy, which is part and parcel of defense and security structures, will have to be altered to suit the agenda of the Americas; agriculture, energy, immigration, policing and border practices, these too will see changes – some subtle, some drastic.

   Writing in 1992 on the prospects of regionalism, professor Philip Bom observed,

 

   Before the United States is pulled into a commonist market in which it will no longer be independently powerful and into a cooperative commonwealth of states, which distributes the wealth of the nations, Americans need to engage in a little rethinking about the globalization of the Americas into a New Global Order.[24]

 

   Eleven years after Professor Bom penned those words, the governments of North and South America are on the verge of reinventing the entire economic and political hemisphere. In retrospect, there is a sad and ironic twist to Mr. Bom’s statement; first, most American citizens are presently too poorly informed to “rethink” the role of the Americas in a new international order – unfortunately, to the average person, this subject is considered either too complex to understand or completely outside the realm of reality.

   Secondly, and probably most importantly, the US government under both Democrat and Republican administrations have been the principal engine driving hemispheric integration. This direct process has been underway for more than ten years, with elements of this integration agenda stretching back decades.

   Already in 1991, as free trade and globalization was just starting to become buzz words in our political lexicon, Mel Hurtig, founder of the Council of Canadians, recognized the uniqueness of independent countries in contrast to a globalized world. Hurtig wrote,

 

   The advantage of the nation-state is that it allows the people the freedom to determine their own future to the best of their ability. People of common values and inclinations build traditions and develop a legal framework for the society they have evolved…for the preservation of their heritage, their culture, their moral standards, their ethics, and their customs. Different nations have different standards and values; and to the extent that democracy functions properly, these standards and values are reflected in the way the society functions.[25]

  

   Hurtig has a point; each nation is different, each nation is unique – with unique histories, traditions, cultures, economic, and political systems. Ultimately, however, the globalization of hemispheric free trade runs counter to national independence, bringing each of the participating countries into a  converged economic, political, and military structure. Think of it as a “grand chess play,” where the average citizen doesn’t even make the grade of “pawn.”

   By December 2005, if negotiations stay on track, it appears that the unavoidable “reality of the 21st century” will be an interdependent American hemisphere. This emerging reality was summed up by Professor Bom over a decade ago.

 

There is the determination to institutionalize interdependence: a new global order through regional, bilateral and multilateral regulations…[Hence] Individual freedoms and national constitutional authority are sacrificed on the alter of the new global commonism.[26] ■  

                                     

 

 

 

 

Carl Teichrib is a freelance researcher and writer on issues pertaining to globalization.

 

 

 

 

 

Endnotes:       


[1] Remarks by the President in Press Conference at Conclusion of the Summit of the Americas, Quebec Convention Center, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, April 22, 2001.

[2] Despite the news-talk of economic recovery, the financial structure of America isn’t just slumping, it’s falling over. Record unemployment, massive job cutbacks, industries moving off-shore in droves, colossal government spending (in late May, President Bush approved a $984 billion increase to the national debt – the largest in America’s history), billions more spent on Iraq and billions more to be spent, enormous trade deficits, and a tenuous greenback all point to an economic abyss. It’s an interesting “recovery”: one that places more burdens upon taxpayers while simultaneously decreasing personal purchasing power.  

[3] Philip C. Bom, The Coming Century of Commonism: The Beauty and the Beast of Global Governance (Virginia Beach: Policy Books Incorporated, 1992), p.222; Hannah Holm, Enterprise of the Americas Initiative – Analysis, July 1993.

[4] If anything, the fact that both parties have pushed this agenda shows that it matters not which administration is in power: the bottom line is that there is an agenda to follow. 

[5] Free Trade Area of the Americas: Negotiations Progress, but Successful Ministerial Hinges on Intensified US Preparations, US General Accounting Office, April 2003, p.4.

[6] Ibid., pp.4-5.

[7] Ibid, p.1.

[8] Embassy of Canada, Canada-United States: The World’s Largest Trading Relationship, fact sheet, 2002; Natural Resources Canada, Canada’s Resource Industries: A Good Place to Invest;  “Cellucci calls for easier access to Canadian energy reserves,” Canadian Press, The Brandon Sun, Saturday, May 10, 2003, p.A9.

[9] Remarks by the President in Press Conference at Conclusion of the Summit of the Americas, Quebec Convention Center, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, April 22, 2001.

[10] In a speech to the Spanish government on April 14, 2002, Javad Yarjani, head of OPEC’s Market Analysis Department, clearly expressed an interest in the possibility of switching the global oil standard from the US dollar to the Euro. Furthermore, Yarjani noted that the new Euro-zone now imports more oil than the US, making this transition more alluring yet. Iran, a key OPEC nation, as already expressed interest in this possibility, and Venezuela, which sits at the helm of OPEC, has openly declared its interest in tightening petroleum ties with the EU. For a detailed analysis of this trend, watch for an upcoming report by Carl Teichrib regarding the European Central Bank, the Euro, OPEC, and the interrelated interests of oil leveraging power as it applies to global economic and security agendas.

[11] Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives (Basic Books, 1997), p.215.

[12] This concept of American global primacy is best expressed in Brzezinski’s book, The Grand Chessboard. Brzezinski was the National Security Advisor for President Carter and co-chairman of the Bush National Security Advisory Task Force (1988). He co-founder the Trilaterial Commission, and is currently involved as a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

[13] Robert Muller, speech before the Global Citizenship 2000 Youth Congress, April 5, 1997, Vancouver, BC. An audio tape of his speech, along with the entire event, is in the author’s possession.

[14] Philip C. Bom, The Coming Century of Commonism: The Beauty and the Beast of Global Governance (Virginia Beach: Policy Books Incorporated, 1992), pp.193, 223.

[15] Colonel Joseph Núñez, A 21st Century Security Architecture for the Americas: Multilateral Cooperation, Liberal Peace, and Soft Power (US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, August 2002).

[16] Ibid., p.31.

[17] Ibid., pp.35, 37.

[18] Ibid., p.29.

[19] Ibid, forward by Douglas C. Lovelace, p.iv.

[20] Ibid., p.10.

[21] Free Trade Area of the Americas: Negotiations Progress, but Successful Ministerial Hinges on Intensified US Preparations, US General Accounting Office, April 2003, pp.19-23.

[22] Ibid., p.18.

[23] Robert P. Hillmann, Reinventing Government: Fast Bullets and Culture Changes, a special report from the Murchison Chair of Free Enterprise, 2001, p.75.

[24] Philip C. Bom, The Coming Century of Commonism: The Beauty and the Beast of Global Governance (Virginia Beach: Policy Books Incorporated, 1992), p. 230.

[25] Mel Hurtig, The Betrayal of Canada (Stoddart Publishing, 1991), p.184.

[26] Philip C. Bom, The Coming Century of Commonism: The Beauty and the Beast of Global Governance (Virginia Beach: Policy Books Incorporated, 1992), p.223.