Proponents argue that the FTAA would increase prosperity by eliminating trade and investment barriers between the nations of the Western Hemisphere. The FTAA would expand NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, to include all of the Latin American countries with the exception of Cuba. NAFTA currently applies only to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Privately, proponents are also saying that the FTAA would deepen NAFTA by claiming jurisdiction over an ever-increasing number of functions that have previously been under the control of national, state, and local governments.

Proponents are employing numerous deceptions to keep the American public asleep while this revolutionary scheme is implemented. First is the name itself – the use of the term Free Trade in the name is a violation of truth in labeling. The objective of this charade is to enlist support among those who understand the economic benefits of true free trade.

The Free Trade Charade

Commenting about NAFTA, the FTAA’s predecessor, James Bovard of the CATO Institute warned, "With each passing month, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is acquiring more protectionist overtones." Bovard notes that the pact contains Byzantine "rules of origin" for products to qualify as North American products. He also points out the unlikelihood that this treaty, which is over 1,000 pages long, could represent anything resembling bona fide free trade: "Free trade is not complex -- it is protectionism that requires endless administrative gimmicks to camouflage its true nature. NAFTA amounts to a proliferation of new definitions of fair trade."

The plan for NAFTA mandated the creation of more than 30 international government committees, subcommittees, councils, working groups, and subgroups. For example, NAFTA established the Free Trade Council with at least eight permanent committees, six "working groups," and five subcommittees and subgroups. And NAFTA’s side agreement on import surges called for the creation of a permanent "Working Group on Emergency Actions." Other side agreements on labor and the environment called for still more "law-making" bodies and advisory committees.

NAFTA supporter Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) bragged about the "iron fist" of that pact. No, NAFTA was not about free trade. Nor is the FTAA, which is based on an expansion of NAFTA. In case there is any doubt about the teeth in the NAFTA agreement, consider the candid statements of U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, the negotiator of the "side agreement" on the environment. Kantor said officially that "no nation can lower labor or environmental standards, only raise them .... " In the Wall Street Journal on August 17, 1993, Kantor explicitly stated that "no country in the agreement can lower its environmental standards -- ever."

Then What?

An even bigger deception than the name itself is the true objective of the FTAA step. The major advocates of NAFTA/FTAA generally try to deceive the public as to the magnitude and real objective of their revolutionary proposals. Nevertheless, there have been some startling and candid admissions in the general press:

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a member of the executive committee of the Trilateral Commission and a longtime power in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), called the vote on NAFTA the single most important decision that Congress would make during Mr. Clinton's first term. Indeed, Kissinger acknowledged in the Los Angeles Times that passage of NAFTA "will represent the most creative step toward a new world order taken by any group of countries since the end of the Cold War...." NAFTA "is not a conventional trade agreement," he noted, "but the architecture of a new international system."

David Rockefeller, Kissinger's superior among the Trilateralists and members of the Council on Foreign Relations, exhorted in the Wall Street Journal: "Everything is in place -- after 500 years -- to build a true 'new world' in the Western Hemisphere."

Another proponent, Andrew Reding of the New School for Social Research, admitted in a Canadian publication that the passage of NAFTA, which he called "an incipient form of international government," would "signal the formation, however tentatively, of a new political unit -- North America." This is not idle speculation, for as Reding suggested, "with economic integration will come political integration."

Still another supporter, Representative Robert Matsui (D-CA), candidly admitted that the NAFTA agreement brings with it a surrender of American "independence."

The FTAA is a key milestone in a major grab for political power over the nations of this hemisphere. Proponents intend for the FTAA to follow the same route that globalists used to deceive the nations of Europe into giving up their sovereignty step-by-step to the government of the EU in Brussels. The first step in those plans was a so-called "free trade zone" -- the Common Market. As nations were being enticed to join the European common market, proponents lied as to their ultimate intentions by denying that any political sovereignty was at stake.

In less public forums, FTAA proponents admit the parallel to the European Union.

Open Borders

Proponents also conceal the effect of the FTAA on U.S. borders, realizing that the American public would not support their revolutionary goals. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO) has clearly and correctly warned:

"There are people in the [Bush] administration, and in Mexico, and in Congress, who believe that we should do away with borders entirely. Their ultimate goal is to create this hemispheric ‘free trade’ area consolidating all of North and South America into some kind of ‘United States of the Americas.’"

Mexico’s Vicente Fox, in a 2002 address to European elites, was unexpectedly candid about these aims:

"Eventually our long-range objective is to establish with the United States, but also with Canada, our other regional partner, an ensemble of connections and institutions similar to those created by the European Union, with the goal of attending to future themes [such as] the future prosperity of North America, and the movement of capital, goods, services, and persons." [Emphasis ours]

This same vision has been endorsed by powerful people in our nation -- including some regarded to be conservative. Among those who applauded Fox's vision was Robert L. Bartley, editor of the influential Wall Street Journal:

"Reformist Mexican President Vicente Fox raises eyebrows with his suggestion that over a decade or two Nafta should evolve into something like the European Union, with open borders for not only goods and investment but also people. He can rest assured that there is one voice north of the Rio Grande that supports his vision. To wit, this newspaper."

"Indeed, during the immigration debate of 1984 we suggested an ultimate goal to guide passing policies — a constitutional amendment: "There shall be -- open borders."

—July 2, 2002 editorial entitled "Open NAFTA Borders? Why Not?"

Harmonization

When globalists seek to rally support for their schemes, they often use code terms such as "convergence," "integration,’ and [upward or downward) "harmonization." These deliberately vague and ambiguous buzz words are calculated to seem unthreatening to the general public.

But what the globalists mean by these terms reveals a great deal about how their plans will actually affect Americans. In the globalist lexicon, liberalization, harmonization, integration, and cooperation mean socialization, internationalization, expansion, centralization, and concentration of the powers of government.

When negotiators for the European Community or the North American Free Trade Agreement use the term "harmonization," they are referring to the effort to impose uniform wages and regulations across national borders. With respect to human rights, "harmonization" refers to the subordination of national constitutions to UN human rights conventions and covenants.

Naturally, in the United Nations, where the vast majority of member states are authoritarian regimes, "harmonization" means that American citizens must yield their rights for the common "global good." The UN Charter, of course, like most of the national constitutions of UN member states, recognizes no God-given individual rights and certainly no individual right to keep and bear arms. So, for example, "harmonization" would inevitably mean tightening controls on the loosely regulated U.S. gun business .

Upward harmonization means taking the socialist regulations and standards that are stifling business and ensuring that these standards are harmonized upward through the hemisphere. On the other hand, downward harmonization refers to the fact that for the nations of our hemisphere to "converge," the standard of living of most Americans will have to plummet.

Other Deceptions

This web site also presents evidence of other deceptions, such as:

1. The real forces driving the FTAA proposal that are kept from public scrutiny.

What are the origins of the FTAA?

Internationalists/Globalists

2. The orchestration of a phony hemispheric consensus so that it appears that leaders from Canada, Mexico, and Latin America all independently favor an FTAA.

3. The globalist funding of phony opposition to the FTAA. This phony opposition includes not only the rabble demonstrating in the streets but also Establishment-anointed "respectable" opposition. Both forms serve to confuse the American public and help build support for an even more aggressive FTAA agenda by demanding upward harmonization of the radical regulation that is already undermining our economic vitality.

4. Offers of loans through the World Bank to develop the infrastructure of the poorer countries of Latin America. These "bribes" are designed to lure those nations into the FTAA trap, from which there will be no escape.

And the last deception:

5. The claim that the FTAA will promote prosperity throughout the region and in America. This claim is merely bait and dishonest bait at that. Prosperity comes from a culture and a political system that protects freedom. Men must be free to innovate and to keep the fruits of their labor. That opportunity explains the incredible rise of the American middle class during the 19th and 20th centuries and why so many people came to this nation in search of a better life.

The Internationalists promoting the FTAA have rejected those lessons of history – they seek to regulate the world, not to advance freedom either at home or abroad. And they have little compunction in providing foreign aid to corrupt regimes that keep their people in poverty. [See "Welcome Mat to Terrorists" under "Recommended reading," below.]

Recommended reading:

Welcome Mat for Terrorists - The New American - December 29, 2003

With Marxist Regimes in Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil and Haiti, and Communist movements in other Latin American countries, the FTAA poses an enormous security nightmare.

Erasing Our Borders - The New American - May 6, 2002

Globalists are maneuvering America into a merger with the rest of the Western Hemisphere via "free trade" agreements. Their goal, as with the EU, is regional government.

Pincer Strategy Behind the FTAA - The New American - May 21, 2001

Street-level radicals are making it easier for pinstripe revolutionaries to transform their "free trade" rhetoric into regional governance — all according to plan.

Further reading in Archives