The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is dead, says Robert A. Pastor, the American University professor who for more than a decade has been a major proponent of building a North American Community.

'The new president will probably discard the SPP,' Pastor wrote in an article titled 'The Future of North America,' published in the current July/August issue of the Council on Foreign Relations magazine Foreign Affairs.

The SPP, which critics contend is a step toward a North American Union, is an agreement to increase cooperation on security and economic issues signed by the leaders of the U.S., Mexico and Canada in 2005. Despite having no authorization from Congress, the Bush administration launched extensive working-group activity to implement the agreement. The working groups – ranging from e-commerce, to aviation policy, to borders and immigration – have counterparts in Mexico and Canada.

'The April summit meeting was probably the last hurrah for the SPP,' Pastor wrote, referring to the fourth annual SPP meeting held in April in New Orleans.

Pastor attributes the failure of SPP to its largely bureaucratic nature and the decision policy makers made to keep SPP largely below the radar of public opinion.

'The strategy of acting on technical issues in an incremental, bureaucratic way and keeping the issues away from public view has generated more suspicion than accomplishments,' Pastor admitted. ...