NEW YORK – In a summit meeting at the White House Tuesday with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, President Obama took the opportunity to tout his executive action to grant amnesty to the parents of illegal-alien children.
“We very much appreciate Mexico’s commitment to work with us to send a very clear message around the executive actions that I’m taking that we are going to provide a mechanism so that families are not separated who have been here for a long time,” Obama said at their joint press availability.
Pena Nieto was equally effusive in his praise for Obama’s unilateral action on immigration.
“I have made acknowledgement of the very intelligent and audacious decision of your administration regarding the executive action for immigration, which is, of course, an act of justice for people who arrive from other parts of the world but are now part of the U.S. community,” the Mexican president agreed. “And among the population that will surely be benefited through your executive action, sir, there’s a very big majority of Mexican citizens.”
The summit, billed as the second meeting of the U.S.-Mexico High-Level Economic Dialogue, HLED, was overshadowed by continuing violence in Mexico, including the kidnapping of 43 students in the Mexican state of Guerrero Sept. 26. The incident prompted nationwide protests against Pena Nieto over suspicions of government complicity in the drug gang warfare, which was thought responsible for the students’ disappearance.
Advancing ‘2 ocean’ globalist agenda
As WND has reported, the move toward North American integration reached a peak with the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, SPP, declared by President Bush in a 2005 summit meeting with Mexico and Canada. Bi-partite meetings between the U.S. and Mexico and between the U.S. and Canada replaced the tri-partite meetings after some conservatives protested the three nations were secretly pursuing a North American Union regional government under the guise of free trade agreements ing NAFTA.
Free trade agreements remained at the center of the White House-hosted HLED meeting with Mexico, as President Obama used the occasion to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement the U.S. has been negotiating with 11 countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region, including Canada and Mexico. Critics see the TPP as part of globalist “two-ocean” plan designed to supersede the failed SPP initiative that Obama is pursuing in conjunction with continuing negotiations for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union.
In a joint statement at the end of the summit, Obama and Pena Nieto said Mexico and the United States “also are close partners in the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, an historic undertaking intended to boost economic growth, development, and prosperity, and support additional jobs in both countries.”
“We have made significant progress over the past year in setting the stage to finalize a high-standard and comprehensive agreement,” the joint statement continued. “With the end coming into focus, the United States, Mexico and the other 10 TPP countries are strongly committed to moving the negotiations forward to conclusion as soon as possible. The substantial new opportunities for U.S. and Mexican exporters that the TPP will offer will be enhanced by our work together in the HLED.”
Deja vu
As an indication of the serious scope of the HLED summit, Vice President Joe Biden hosted Mexican Finance Secretary Luis Videgaray in an all-day working session that included U.S. cabinet secretaries, joined by some 30 undersecretaries and staff, plus their Mexican counterparts: Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, Director of the Office of Management and Budget Shaun Donovan and the U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman.
Among the “HLED successes” listed by the White House at the end of the summit were:
- Initiating an air transport agreement that will benefit travelers, shippers, airlines and the economies of both countries with competitive pricing and more convenient air service.
- Increasing cooperation to more efficiently manage telecommunications systems. Infrastructure improvements at the border have cut wait times significantly for people crossing into the United States at San Diego and Nogales, Arizona.
- Signing an agreement for mutual recognition of “trusted trader” programs to ease the flow of goods across borders and a Memorandum of Intent to promote investment.
- Creating a Bilateral Forum for Higher Education, Innovation and Research (FOBESII), which held a series of six workshops that included over 450 stakeholders from government, private and academic spheres – all working to propel the studies and careers of hundreds of students and professionals.
- Facilitating with academia and the private sector the sending of more than 27,000 Mexican students and teachers to the United States in 2014 and signing 23 new bilateral education agreements.
As with the SPP, the HLED discussions were held without any involvement from Congress and were approved by the Obama administration executive branch without the consideration or passage of any law or treaty.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the Obama administration identified a list of future tasks that was reminiscent of the “working group agreements” achieved by the Bush administration under the SPP in U.S.-Mexican jointly constituted executive branch committees organized along the lines of various public policy issues.
The HLED meeting at the White House committed to the following “priorities” for 2015, as directly quoted from the press release issued at the conclusion of the summit:
- Energy and climate change cooperation. At the January 2015 meeting, for the first time, our governments agreed to add energy and climate cooperation to the HLED work-plan. The United States and Mexico will enhance communication and collaboration between our energy agencies, facilitate cross-border flow of energy-related equipment, improve information on U.S.-Mexico energy flows, create a bi-national business-to-business energy council, increase regulatory cooperation, and enhance safety and capacity-building programs, including training energy regulators, to support Mexico’s energy reform. We will also continue efforts that help our governments meet our climate change goals, including by promoting renewable energy, sharing strategies for low-emission development, and working together through technical cooperation and information exchange on how best to implement our shared climate objectives, before and after 2020. In support of broader regional energy and climate collaboration, Mexico is hosting in 2015 the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas and the Clean Energy Ministerial.
- Deepen regulatory cooperation. Regulatory cooperation can increase economic growth in each country; lower costs for consumers, businesses, producers, and governments; increase trade in goods and services; and improve our ability to protect the environment, health, and safety of our citizens. Our governments have pledged to collaborate in priority areas and continue the work of the High-Level Regulatory Cooperation Council.
- Strengthen and modernize our border. Our governments have agreed to focus not only on the infrastructure and the facilitation of trade and legitimate travel, but also the social, economic, financial, and environmental elements for the adequate development of the region. Also, through complementary processes like the 21st Century Border Management Initiative, our governments have pledged to identify priority projects and reduce bottlenecks at the border.
- Increase educational exchanges and boost workforce development. The U.S. and Mexico created the Bilateral Forum on Education, Innovation, and Research (FOBESII) to increase educational and professional exchange programs, promote joint science and technology research, and spur innovation. FOBESII complements President Obama’s “100,000 Strong in the Americas” initiative, which seeks to increase student mobility between the United States and the countries of the Western Hemisphere, including Mexico. By investing in our citizens, this initiative creates a stronger workforce and regional economy for the benefit of both of our nations.
- Support transparency and anti-corruption efforts. We support measures to enhance government transparency, including under the global Open Government Partnership, chaired this year by both the Mexican government and civil society. In 2015, we will continue to work with our OGP partners around the world to support advances in open government, open budgeting, access to information, transparency and anti-corruption. This includes support for government efforts to implement commitments contained in their OGP National Action Plans.
- Promote entrepreneurship and innovation. The U.S. Department of State and the Mexican National Entrepreneurship Institute (INADEM) launched the Mexican-U.S. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Council (MUSEIC) to foster the role that entrepreneurship and innovation play in economic growth. The goal of this unique, bi-national public-private partnership is to enhance regional competitiveness by boosting North America’s high-impact entrepreneurship ecosystem.
- Promote investment. Investment promotion agencies on both sides of the border – SelectUSA and ProMexico – are building on their agreement signed in 2014. They have started to share information and collaborate at investment promotion events in order to leverage our shared economic strength to achieve competitive advantage in the global marketplace.
- Promote women’s economic empowerment. Both governments recognize women’s empowerment and economic participation are essential for competitiveness. When promoting entrepreneurship, educational exchange, or regional competitiveness, Mexico and the U.S. have integrated gender as a top program priority.
Where’s Congress?
The Mexican finance secretary, Videgray, called the priorities “a long list that presents a management challenge and needs leadership in every issue,” without any reference to either the Mexican Parliament or the U.S. Congress.
“One of the things we’ve learned is that we can do a lot in terms of border infrastructure and there are some – as Penny Pritzker says – some low-hanging fruits that can be seized upon, but that needs a lot of work,” he continued.
“It’s not only about infrastructure, it’s about regulation, and I fully agree, Mr. Vice President [Biden], that this is setting a high challenge,” Videgray said. “It’s not any easier on our side than on your side, so that’s where leadership is needed. Of course the presidential level, but also the Cabinet level.”
