In their own words: some of the promoters of so-called free trade agreements such as the FTAA have, at times, acknowledged that their purpose is to create supranational governments

New American, The, Sept 6, 2004

In 1994, President Clinton convened the Summit of the Americas.... As president, I will build on that spirit and help forge a new and broader "Community of the Americas."

-- Senator John Kerry Interview in Poder magazine, August 2004

We cannot leap into world government in one quick step.... [This objective] requires a process of gradually expanding the range of democratic cooperation ... a widening, step by step, stone by stone, [of] existing relatively narrow zones of stability.... [T]he precondition for eventual globalization--genuine globalization --is progressive regionalization because thereby we move toward larger, more stable, more cooperative units.

--Zbigniew Brzezinski Former national security adviser to President Carter, address to Mikhail Gorbachev's State of the World Forum, October 1995 (Brzezinski was the first North American director of the Trilateral Commission.)

[T]he "house of world order" will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down.... [A]n end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault....

Among other things, we will be seeking new rules in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to cover a whole range of hitherto unregulated nontariff barriers. These will subject countries to an unprecedented degree of international surveillance over up to now sacrosanct "domestic" policies, such as farm price supports, subsidies, and government procurement practices that have transnational effects.

-- Richard N. Gardner Foreign Affairs, April 1974 (Foreign Affairs is the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations. Gardner has held a number of posts in the U.S. State Department.)

[T]his summit is much broader than [lowering tariffs], and that's how it should be looked at. This is not a trade summit, it is an overall summit. It will focus on economic integration and convergence.

-- Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty President Clinton's chief of staff, in reference to the December 1994 Summit of the Americas in Miami, which formally launched the drive for the FTAA

Hemispheric institutions, including the OAS [Organization of American States] and Inter-American Development Bank and now the NAFTA institutions, can be forged into the vital mechanisms of hemispheric governance.

--National Security Adviser Anthony Lake Memo to President Bill Clinton, November 29, 1993

While the isolationists ... tempted millions with their siren's appeal to nativism--the internationalists were always hard at work in quiet places making plans for a more perfect global community. In the end the internationalists have always dominated national policy. Even so, they haven't bragged about their globe-building for fear of reawakening the other half of the American psyche, our berserker nativism. And so they have always done it in the most out-of-the-way places and with little ado.... Like it or not--and clearly large numbers of Americans still don't--we Americans are now part of an organic whole with the world that George Washington wanted to keep distant.

--Michael Hirsh Article entitled "Death of a Founding Myth," Special international edition of Newsweek, December 2001--February 2002

NAFTA was merely the first draft of an economic constitution for North America.... Although NAFTA fueled the train of continental integration, it did not provide conductors to guide it.

--Prof. Robert A. Pastor Foreign Affairs, January/February 2004

Eventually, our long-range objective [with NAFTA] is to establish with the United States, but also with Canada, our other regional partner, an ensemble of connections and institutions similar to those created by the European Union.

--Mexican President Vicente Fox Remarks in Madrid, May 16, 2002

The WTO is the only international organization that stands any chance of evolving into an institution of global governance, setting rules not only for how countries will trade and invest with one another, but also for how they will deal with issues like labor standards and the environment.

--Leftist academic Francis Fukuyama Wall Street Journal article, December 1, 1999

The ultimate goal of any White House policy ought to be a North American economic and political alliance similar in scope and ambition to the European Union.

--Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial September 7, 2001

After four decades of dedicated effort, Western Europe has just arrived at the threshold of ... monetary union, and fiscal coordination. It seems likely that trade and investment integration will proceed at a faster pace within the Western Hemisphere.

--Gary Hufbauer (CFR) and Jeffrey Schott Western Hemisphere Economic Intergration, 1994

We're working to build a Free Trade Area of the Americas [FTAA], and we're determined to complete those negotiations by January of 2005.... Today, I announce that the United States will explore a free trade agreement with the countries of Central America [CAFTA]. My administration will work closely with Congress toward this goal. Our purpose is to strengthen the economic tics we already have with these nations; to reinforce their progress toward economic and political and social reform; and to take another step toward completing the Free Trade Area of the Americas.