User:Hemlock Martinis/North American Union

The North American Union or NAU is a conspiracy theory that refers to a continental union of Canada, Mexico and the United States similar in structure to the European Union, including a common currency called the amero. There are no proposals to create such a union.

Origins
North American Union conspiracy theories are predominant on the Internet, especially among bloggers and other writers. Jerome Corsi's columns on WorldNetDaily and Human Events, as well as his best-selling book The Late Great U.S.A.: The Coming Merger With Mexico and Canada, formed the core of the NAU conspiracy theory.

Features
Conspiracy theories of a North American Union share a number of common elements between them. NASCO and the SPP have both addressed the establishment of a common currency, a "NAFTA Superhighway", and the creation of a North American Union in "Myths vs Facts" pages on their websites.

Amero
The amero is the appellation given to what would be the North American Union's counterpart to the euro. It was first proposed in 1999 by Canadian economist Herbert G. Grubel. A senior fellow of the Fraser Institute think-tank, he published a book entitled The Case for the Amero in September 1999, the year that the euro became a virtual currency. Another Canadian think-tank, the conservative C.D. Howe Institute, advocates the creation of a shared currency between Canada and the United States.

Although Mexican President Vicente Fox has expressed support for the idea, when Grubel brought up the idea to American officials, they said they were not interested, citing lack of benefits for the U.S.

On August 31 2007, conspiracy theorist and Internet broadcaster Hal Turner claimed to have arranged for a United States Government minted Amero coin to be smuggled out of the Treasury Department by an employee of that organization. Snopes has assessed both Turner's story and the existence of the amero as "false".

NAFTA Superhighway
The Trans-Texas Corridor was first proposed by Texas Governor Rick Perry in 2002. It consists of a 1,200 foot wide highway that also carries utilities such as electricity, petroleum and water as well as railway track and fiber-optic cables. 2008 U.S. presidential candidate Ron Paul brought the issue to mainstream prominence during the December 2007 CNN-YouTube GOP debate, where he called it "the NAFTA Superhighway" and framed it within "the ultimate goal" of creating a North American Union.

Officials from the Federal Highway Administration have denied the existence of a NAFTA superhighway. NASCO also refutes the NAFTA superhighway's existence.

Denials
The creation of a North American Union, the amero or a NAFTA superhighway have all been rebuked by government officials from all three North American countries, including U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who stated "There is no secret plan to create a North American union, or a common currency, or to intrude on the sovereignty of any of the partner nations". Officials from the Federal Highway Administration have also denied such a creation. After the leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United States were asked about the NAU in a August 2007 press conference in Montebello, Canada, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated that he didn't believe that the NAU was a "generally expressed concern", while U.S. President George W. Bush called concerns of a North American Union "political scare tactics" and mentioned how "comical" the "difference between reality and what some people are talking on TV about."