Thread: SPP? No Thanks, Business Tells U.S. Commerce Secretary

They keep denying it!

Security and prosperity? No thanks, business tells U.S. Commerce Secretary


BARRIE MCKENNA


November 6, 2007

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez seemed almost embarrassed as he paused during a speech last week to set the record straight about his country's Security and Prosperity Partnership with Canada and Mexico.

"There is no secret plan to a create a North American union or a common currency or intrude on the sovereignty of any partner nations," the former Kellogg Co. executive assured members of the Canadian and U.S. chambers of commerce, along with a cluster of U.S. and Canadian government officials.

A monster NAFTA highway from Tijuana to Tuktoyaktuk? Ain't happening either, he insisted.

No matter how often he repeats the disclaimer, "calls and e-mails" still flood the Commerce Department, a frustrated Mr. Gutierrez acknowledged.

The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) was born more than two years ago at a North American free-trade leaders' summit in Waco, Tex.

The reality of the SPP and the perception among its critics couldn't be farther apart.

To a rag-tag collection of mainly U.S. groups from both ends of the political spectrum, the SPP is a secret plot by the Bush administration and Big Business to wipe out borders between the three countries, tap Canada's oil and throw a security cordon around it all.

The reality on the ground is quite different. As most travellers and businesses know, the border has become considerably less easy - or "thicker and stickier," as Canadian Chamber of Commerce president Perrin Beatty put it.

Canada, which was the main architect of the SPP, saw the deal as a way to undo some of the economic damage caused by the post-Sept. 11 security angst and ward off new restrictions. To make the SPP more palatable to skeptical Americans, it was framed as a partnership to promote safe trade. Mexico was added to the mix, almost as an afterthought.

But many of its modest ambitions remain unfulfilled. And measured by the obstacles to travel and commerce - new and planned - the SPP is a disappointment.

"There is great confusion and aversion to travel here," complained Roger Dow, president of the U.S. Travel Industry Association. He cited new visa and passport hassles and fees.

Overseas travel to the United States has plunged 17 per cent since the 9/11 attacks, even as global travel has grown. That has cost the U.S. economy $94-billion (U.S.) in spending, 200,000 jobs and $16-billion in tax revenue, according to the Discover America Partnership, a U.S. travel industry group.

"Don't confuse long lines and inefficiency with better security," Mr. Dow said.

Even with the U.S. dollar tanking, the Commerce Department is projecting that the number of overseas visits to the U.S. won't regain 2000 levels until 2010.

At the same event in Washington where Mr. Gutierrez issued his SPP disclaimer, several business people complained about the many ways the border has become tougher.

This year was a "summer from hell" along the border, with some of the longest waits since 2001 for cars and trucks, said Stan Korosec, vice-president of operations of the Blue Water Bridge, which links Sarnia, Ont., and Port Huron, Mich. He said U.S. border guards are asking more questions, doing more extensive database checks and sending more trucks to secondary inspection.

And that may be a prelude to what happens next year when the U.S. will begin requiring passports for most people crossing Canada-U.S. land borders. "We ain't seen nothing yet," he warned.

Executives of Microsoft Corp. complained about the dysfunctional U.S. immigration system, which is preventing the software maker from hiring the skilled foreign workers it needs, from Canada and elsewhere. A lobbyist for Campbell Soup Co. likewise warned that proposed new food inspection fees could hit it and other companies with plants in both countries particularly hard.

Even users of two signature SPP programs - the Nexus safe traveller card and the FAST/Express lane for prescreened trucks - are running into increasing flak at the border. Nexus users, for example, can't renew their cards and must reapply every five years.

Nativist and protectionist sentiment is running high on Capitol Hill these days, pointed out Randel Johnson, the Chamber of Commerce's top lobbyist on border and immigration issues. And he scoffed at the suggestion that Americans are ready to embrace the idea of a North American security perimeter.

"We're probably 100 years away from seeing that," he said.

In the current environment, a wall on the 49th parallel seems more likely than a North American security blanket. And that's not much of a partnership.

bmckenna@globeandmail.com





http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... y/Business

I must be a total idiot because Gut says closed meetings are not secret?

Dixie

This BARRIE MCKENNA person seems to be a plant working FOR the SPP or at the very least, working for the Canadian or U.S. Government..

U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez = TREASON... I want this man behind PRISON BARS FOR THE REST OF HIS NATURAL BORN LIFE

Bush = Treason
Chertoff = Treason
Rice= Treason
Gutierrez = TREASON

It's time to put them in PRISON PEOPLE

They might need to go tell Vicente Fox that news flash, because he sure is under the impression that the SPP/NAU pact will be completed with the AMERO replacing the dollar and that it is coming down the pike at some future point in time.

They had better rescue him from the talk show circuit quick because the cat/FOX is out of the bag.

Jeremiah 29:11

Oh really....I bought that ....how about you....and a bear doesn't poo in the woods

Originally Posted by GeorgiaPeach

They might need to go tell Vicente Fox that news flash, because he sure is under the impression that the SPP/NAU pact will be completed with the AMERO replacing the dollar and that it is coming down the pike at some future point in time.

They had better rescue him from the talk show circuit quick because the cat/FOX is out of the bag.

Yea, really, its like the knuckle heads would at least have all of their ducks in a row, at least the right hand would know what the left hand is doing..Boy, for a bunch of nuts who are trying to pull off the conspiracy of the century..I mean they have to be really stupid..

But part of me thinks that Bush and Gutierrez are lying to try and keep the whole kitty from getting out of the bag. They must have done something to piss off Vicente Fox and now he is acting as a loose cannon, singing like a bird, talking up a storm..What a crew, aye?

Keystone Cop antics - buffoonery

Psalm 91

OH, I think they all know. They are just trying to keep us in the dark.

They were successful for 20 years, or more, on illegals -