Talk of EU-Style Governance of the Americas Raises Red Flags With Congressman
By AUTUMN SPREDEMANN & CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON
Copyright (c) 2022 The Epoch Times, Edition 10/26/2022Mexico’s president said he has been discussing with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken the possibility of merging the American continent into an EU-style of governance.
“Mr. Blinken talked about consolidating the North American region, and we agreed on that,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said during a press conference last month.
“Not only did I tell him that we were in agreement with consolidating ourselves as a region, including the three countries—Canada, the United States, Mexico—but we were also in favor of the unity of the entire American continent to repeat our project that, just as the European community first emerged and became the European Union. That is what we want, which is [Simón] Bolivar’s dream, but integrating Canada, the United States, all of the Americas.”
Concerned that Blinken appears to be having such discussions abroad, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) sent a letter to the secretary to find out more.
“Is it your position that the North American continent should be united by a regional constitution to further the economic interests of its member states?” Gaetz asked Blinken.
“Is the position of the Department of State that the United States, Canada, and Mexico should become a union of states formed in the likeness of the European Union?”
A spokesman from Gaetz’s office said on Oct. 18 that the congressman hadn’t yet received a response from Blinken.
“Our office is actively monitoring the Biden administration’s plans and will continue to communicate our concerns with the State Department,” the spokesman told The Epoch Times.
Gaetz wrote on Twitter on Oct. 14: “I don’t want my constituents living under socialist tyrannical lockdowns enacted by Justin Trudeau while their nephews get poisoned by Mexican fentanyl.
“But that is the globalist order the Left supports, because they never thought much of America in the first place.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the State Department for comment on the veracity of Obrador’s remarks, and to ask if anyone from the department had spoken to Canadian counterparts about the idea. The State Department didn’t respond.
Obrador said he and Blinken also discussed furthering President Joe Biden’s green energy agenda. A cooperation between Mexico and the United States for expanded lithium and solar energy production, outlined in Obrador’s Sonora Plan, has placed the northwestern Mexican state on Washington’s renewable energy radar.
Organization of American States
Earlier this month, Blinken traveled to Latin America to attend the Organization of American States General Assembly, a U.N.-style organization that was formed in 1948.
At the completion of the summit, the 35 member countries adopted the Lima Declaration, under the theme “Together Against Inequality and Discrimination.”
“When all communities have equal access to development, all of society benefits. And because more equal democracies tend to be more stable and secure partners,” Blinken said during his remarks on Oct. 6 in Lima.
The Lima Declaration couches its goals within the “diversity, equity, inclusion” framework that is criticized for favoring diversity over merit and an assumption that white people are inherently racist.
The declaration focuses on economic issues, climate change, and bolstering inclusion for “minority” groups, especially around gender.
It states that there is a “need to achieve significant increases of financing in favorable conditions and investment from a wide variety of public and private sources, and of international development cooperation, including multilateral organisms, developed countries and the private sector, in order to achieve equitable, fairer, diverse and more prosperous societies.”
American taxpayers fund just shy of 50 percent of the Organization of American States budget, which in 2023 is set to be more than $90.1 billion.
Brazil is the next largest contributor, kicking in 15.3 percent of the budget. Canada and Mexico are next, contributing 12 percent and 7 percent respectively.
Twelve other nations commit $37,6000 each for the year, while Cuba puts in $468,800.
A regional analyst says a consolidated North American region could offer mutual economic benefits and create regional stability, but would need strict guidelines.
“An economic community between the U.S., Mexico, Central America, and the Antilles would be a step forward for the entire region, but it has to be based on the concept of a community of democracies,” Orlando Guiterrez-Boronat told The Epoch Times.
“Such a supranational union, in order to be beneficial, must be based on solid principles of freedom and democracy. Not on the absurd ambiguity towards the tyranny of say, President Lopez Obrador in Mexico.”
Some critics of Mexico’s incumbent president believe the country’s democracy is fragmenting under Obrador due to a departure from democratic norms, including silencing critics, defunding regulatory agencies, and pilfering state-controlled trusts outside the appropriate legal channels.
Boronat says the North American region shouldn’t model itself directly after the EU. He believes that for a consolidated effort to work, a higher level of political rectitude is necessary.
“The lack of political coherence and integrity has hurt the European Union and placed it in the current crisis with the Russian aggression against Ukraine,” he said.
“It’s ludicrous the European Union is currently financing the terrible dictatorship in Cuba. How can that be in consonance with the values the EU is supposed to share with the U.S.?”
New Leftist Presidents
The same week Blinken was in Peru, he visited Colombia and Chile to discuss shared priorities and emphasize regional collaboration.
The U.S. delegate met with Colombia’s newly elected leftist President Gustavo Petro and top-level officials to discuss climate action, the migration crisis flowing through the Darien Gap that links Colombia and Panama, and a “holistic approach” to countering narcotics trafficking in the region.
Petro was elected in June, in a surprising outcome, as Colombia’s first left-wing president. Petro is a former member of the M-19 guerilla group, which was a 1970s-era Marxist organization with ties to the notorious Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The terrorist group demobilized in 1990 and became a legitimate political party under the name Aliaza Democratica M-19.
In Chile, Blinken met with socialist President Gabriel Boric and Foreign Minister Antonia Urrejola on Oct. 5 to discuss similar initiatives, including climate mitigation, bilateral trade opportunities, and illegal migration.
Boric, who has open ties to Chile’s communist party, has faced significant scrutiny in recent months amid a crushing economic downturn and protests. The millennial became the country’s youngest head of state in a runoff election in December 2021.
The tide took a personal turn against Boric in September, when a group of protesters recognized his brother and attacked him. Simon Boric, who works as the chief of staff for the rector’s office at the University of Chile, was hospitalized after an angry mob punched and kicked him outside his home in Santiago.
The attack took place just days before a historic vote on whether to abolish the national constitution that was put in place under the controversial former President Augusto Pinochet. The vote failed and the constitution stands.
The China Connection
There is another player wooing the United States’ southern neighbors.
China is now South America’s largest trading partner and is poised to edge out the United States in trade throughout Latin America.
With its Belt and Road Initiative, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has sunk sizable investments into the region and has become one of its biggest lenders.
The CCP has built ports, roads, dams, and major power projects throughout Latin America over the past 20 years.
“As is the case in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere in Asia, Beijing is using its economic and financial prowess to raise its diplomatic profile and influence,” says Milton Ezrati, chief economist for Vested, a New York-based communications firm and contributor to The Epoch Times.
“Chinese leader Xi Jinping has visited Latin America 11 times since taking office in 2013 and has signed strategic partnerships—the highest classification Beijing offers diplomatic allies—with seven countries, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.”
Between 2009 and 2019, the most recent year for which data are available, China has also sold the equivalent of $165 million in military equipment to Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, including aircraft, air defense radar, and small arms, Ezrati noted.
CRIS BOURONCLE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Representatives of countries attending the 52nd General Assembly of the Organization of American States, in Lima, Peru, on Oct. 6, 2022.
