White House mum on North America summit

President Bush joins the leaders of Mexico and Canada in New Orleans last year (WND photo)

The White House is completely mum on the fifth annual summit of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, now operating under the title of the North American Leaders' Summit, scheduled on the State Department calendar to occur in Mexico next month.

A WND call to the White House for information was referred to the National Security Council, where a spokeswoman told WND that the NSC has not issued any announcement about the Aug. 8-11 meeting and was uncertain whether any plans were in the works to make an announcement anytime in the near future.

The U.S. Department of State did not return WND's phone call asking for comment on this story.

The only mention of the Mexico summit that WND could find on a U.S. government website is on a calendar on the U.S. Department of State site that lists only: "August 8-11, North American Leader's Summit, Mexico," with no additional information.

Formerly known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America Annual Summit, WND has previously reported that the last fourth annual SPP annual held in New Orleans in April 2009 made a determined public relations effort to drop the SPP designation completely in order to defuse criticism.

(Story continues below)

The SPP website maintained by the U.S. Department of Commerce makes no mention of the upcoming Mexico summit. In fact, the "Joint Statement" link from North American Leaders' Summit logo in New Orleans meeting now links to a White House page that no longer makes any reference to the SPP, the North American Leaders' Summit or the Joint Statement that was issued at the New Orleans meeting.

When he was a candidate, Obama wrote an article published by the Dallas Morning News, entitled "I will repair our relationship with Mexico," in which he stated: "Starting my first year in office, I will convene annual meetings with Mr. Calderon and the prime minister of Canada. Unlike similar summits under President Bush, these will be conducted with a level of transparency that represents the close ties among our three countries."

With a tone of irony, Brent Patterson, the director of campaigns at the Council of Canadians, wrote, "With the summit less than six weeks away, and no formal announcement about it yet, we question the commitment of all governments to transparency and accountability for this meeting."

The Council of Canadians is a citizens' organization WND has previously reported is actively opposed to North American political integration under NAFTA and the SPP.

The Council of Canadians noted that no mention of the scheduled August summit meeting in Mexico can be found on the Canadian government's SPP website or on the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs website.

WND could find no reference on President Calderon's Mexican government presidential website after searching both in Spanish and English.

The Mexican Office of the Presidency SPP website listed on the U.S. government SPP website no longer links to a Mexican government webpage.

The Department of Commerce's SPP website does not appear to have been updated yet by the Obama administration, now entering seven months in office.

WND has previously reported that Robert A. Pastor, the American University professor who for more than a decade has been a major proponent of building a North American Community, has declared the SPP "is dead," largely due to efforts to expose the SPP's North American integration agenda.

WND has also reported that President Obama has actively backtracked on his campaign promises to renegotiate NAFTA in order to get provisions more favorable to U.S. workers and U.S. jobs.

During the presidential campaign, Obama was forced to fire from his campaign an important economic adviser. Austan Goolsbee, an economics professor at the University of Chicago business school, was dismissed after reporters learned he had traveled to Canada to reassure Canadians that Obama's campaign promises to renegotiate NAFTA were just campaign rhetoric.

In the Ohio and Pennsylvania Democratic Party primaries, candidate Obama had pledged to renegotiate NAFTA as part of his appeal to Ohio and Pennsylvania workers who have lost manufacturing jobs under the free trade agreements negotiated by Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush.

Now, Goolsbee is back in the White House, having taken a leave of absence from the University of Chicago. Obama appointed him to serve as chief economist and staff director of the newly created Presidential Economic Recovery Advisory Board, chaired by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker.

Obama also appointed Goolsbee to the Council of Economic Advisors, or CEA, which is charged with assisting in the development of White House economic policy.

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