NZ invited into Nafta trap
There is no doubt that there are some smooth talkers in this
world and Brian Mulroney is one of those smooth talkers. We quote from an
article taken from the NZ Herald, 11 July 2001.
It seems strange that the suggestion should be made to the
country of New Zealand apart from Australia, that we should somehow join with
the north Atlantic free trade agreement, yet we belong to another group called
Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC).
What is going on here?
"Some commentators smirked when years ago Ronald Reagan
articulated a vision of a free trade zone that would stretch from Anchorage in
Alaska to Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of Latin America...
President Reagan and I subsequently signed the huge and quite
radical agreement, which came into effect on January 1, 1989...
The US now takes about 85 per cent of Canada's exports and
Canada now buys more American products than the 15 countries in the European
Union combined. In fact, the US exports more to the Canadian province of Ontario
than it does to Japan and three times as much to Canada as to China, Hong Kong
and Taiwan combined...
Based on the Canada-US experience, Nafta has opened up the
Mexico market of 100 million people, creating the largest, richest single market
in the world -– 400 million people accounting for one-third of the world's
output, about $US11 trillion a year.
Hence the importance of the Summit of the Americas.
Since the Quebec Summit last April and the decision to expand free trade
throughout the hemisphere by 2005 -– the final act in the trilogy -– a
$13 trillion to $14 trillion market now awaits North America's entrepreneurs
and business community.
Since the anti-globalisation forces had their coming-out
party in Seattle, 17 months ago, their central message that free trade is a
large-scale swindle of the world's poor, masterminded by big corporations,
has gained unmerited traction among environmentalists, charities, students and
labour unions...
One day, Nafta's successor, the Free Trade Area of the
Americas, will include 34 countries and 800 million people and the US and Canada
will have defined a powerful role for themselves at the very heart of a new free
trade zone, stretching from Pt Barrow to Patagonia, Hawaii to Recife, Easter
Island to Nunavut.
New Zealand is an equally important example of a country
that has benefited from liberalised trade and seeks even more. It is, therefore,
to this remarkable North American market that New Zealand may wish to look.
One possibility that merits serious consideration would be
membership in Nafta for
New Zealand, perhaps with Australia, perhaps without. There
is an accession clause in Nafta requiring the assent of the three founding
nations -– Canada, the US and Mexico -– for new countries to join.
Expanding Nafta across the Pacific to New Zealand would be
mutually advantageous for all four countries. Not only does it make a lot of
sense, it is politically achievable. A lot of the bridges have been built,
through Apec and other multilateral forums and bilateral agreements....
Canada, for example, is New Zealand's 14th-largest
trading partner....
As for the US, it is New Zealand's third-largest trading
partner and, after Australia, your country's second largest source of imports.
On the investment side, the US is the second-largest investor
in New Zealand, heavily weighted towards the new economy....
As for Mexico, the new President, Vicente Fox, is an ardent
free trader, and would likely welcome the opportunity to expand Nafta across the
Pacific...
It would be a daring initiative by New Zealand, but the
benefits to your citizens could be no less dramatic.
(Brian Mulroney...addressing a business forum in Auckland)."
(emphases added).
Author's comment:
This sort of talk sounds good to the uneducated yet to those
of us who understand the whole plan, we can see that it is a voice of seduction
which is trying to encourage another link-up with another part of the world as
ultimately the whole globe will become one unit under the power of Anti-Christ,
the Biblical satanic leader about to arise in our life time.
New Zealand, don't believe Mr Mulroney and his smooth
chatter.
Another article in the NZ Herald, 13 July 2001,
headlines: "Nafta simply a tool for US to dominate others' economies -–
Should New Zealand embrace the North American Free Trade Agreement? If you
listen to Brian Mulroney, the most unpopular Prime Minister in Canadian history,
you would jump at the chance. But if you examine Canada's sobering experience,
you might have second thoughts.
The main purpose of signing the agreement, according to Mr
Mulroney, was to get a measure of protection from American trade remedy law. In
return Canada agreed to give up, among other things, control of its energy
resources....
The free trade agreements were also supposed to vault Canada
ahead in the so-called new economy. But in terms of performance, it has been the
old economy which has done most of the heavy work....
But there is another area of public policy that New
Zealanders should be extremely concerned about. That is chapter 11 of Nafta, the
investment chapter, and it highlights a fact about these deals largely hidden
from the public: they are not mainly about trade at all, but about freeing
American capital from the constraints of democratic governance.
Chapter 11 allows foreign corporations to sue governments
directly for measures that expropriate their property....
A recent poll revealed who Canadians think have benefited
from free trade: 41 per cent said business, 32 per cent said governments, 11 per
cent said consumers and 2 per cent said workers.
There is only one certainty if New Zealand signs Nafta: the
US will get everything it wants because it refuses to sign deals if it doesn't....
With the New Zealand dollar at 40USc, any new American
investment will likely be in the form of acquisitions and the domestic economy
will suffer, as Canada's did, as New Zealand tries to compete with the
American colossus..." (emphasis added).
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