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As promised to calcowgirl, hedgetrimmer, texastoo and some other folks, taking from calcowgirl's link at post #977, I've read through and am now posting excerpts of interest from: North American Economic Integration Policy Options [PDF file], July 2003

I apologize, in advance, for the length of this post (you were pinged because I thought you'd be interested in this topic/document...I normally don't have such lengthy posts); however, this document is tying into much other info we've read; it's as short a summary as was possible, highlighting much of this 23-page document. (Note: There are numerous footnotes within the pdf document, not posted here; all emphasis added is mine.) (Note: report date is 2003.)

North Americanization
NAFTA is a pact bringing together 3 of the world’s 10 largest economies, with the World Bank ranking the United States as number one, Canada as number eight, and Mexico as number nine. [p.2]
Overall immigration to the United States has picked up dramatically in recent years, with 32.5 million foreign-born individuals living in the United States in March 2002, comprising 11.7 percent of the overall population, the highest percentage recorded since the 1930 census. One in five Americans is defined as of “foreign stock,” and about half of all immigrants in the United States have entered the country since 1990 [p.5]
Ranked by country of origin, by far the largest grouping of immigrants in the United States comes from Mexico, with almost 25 million Americans either born in Mexico or being of Mexican descent. The proportion of all immigrants in the United States from Mexico is about 28 percent, the highest recorded for any one country since the 1890 census when 30 percent of all immigrants came from Germany. Perhaps 4 to 5 million Mexicans reside in the United States illegally, and Steve Hanke of Johns Hopkins University estimates that almost 25 percent of the Mexican adult workforce is now employed in the United States rather than in Mexico. [p.5]
President George H.W. Bush has estimated that NAFTA has added 2 million jobs to the U.S. economy, although the U.S. Department of Commerce reduces that estimate to about a million. Most nongovernmental observers believe that anywhere from tens of thousands to a few hundred thousand new jobs may be attributed directly to U.S. membership in NAFTA. [p.6]
Both Canadians and Mexicans would prefer to see closer economic ties with the United States, as long as their sovereignty and sense of national identity can be preserved. These reservations epitomize the asymmetrical nature of the relationship. [p.7]
Mexico is expected in the near future to generate much-needed electricity for California and may eventually build liquefied natural gas receiving terminals to provide gas for California and states in the U.S. southwest. [p.7]
The governments of Alberta, British Columbia, and the Yukon have joined together with Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska to form the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER), which coordinates issues on a regional, cross-border basis. The New England governors and Eastern Canadian premiers have had their own organization in place for nearly 30 years and meet annually to explore regional solutions to trade, investment, energy, environmental, and other policy challenges. The same can be said about the Great Lakes governors and premiers. Literally hundreds of compacts and accords have been negotiated between state and provincial governments, and the degree of interaction among these noncentral government entities is almost unparalleled around the world. [p.11]
Because of the legacy of centralization of authority in Mexico, governmental contacts between U.S. and neighboring Mexican states along the 2,000-mile shared border have been more modest, but they have certainly existed and have picked up some steam since President Fox came to office in Mexico City. The Border Governors Conference has convened annually since 1980 and brings together the leaders of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nue vo León, Sonora, and Tamaulipas.[p.11] [Note: read more about what frequent meetings between and among the various U.S. governors and Mexico.]
...With such subnational governmental linkages proliferating, it is not surprising that President George W. Bush and President Vicente Fox first met while they were serving as governors of Texas and Guanajuato. [p.12]
Nongovernmental associations have also been active on a North American basis, especially industry groups and chambers of commerce. Environmental groups have generally been critical of what they consider to be environmental deterioration along the U.S.-Mexico border and have banded together to demand policy changes on the part of the NAFTA Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). U.S. and Canadian labor unions allege that Mexican workers, especially those in maquiladora facilities, are treated unfairly and that the NAFTA Commission for Labor Cooperation (CLC) has done little to alleviate the situation. Human rights groups deplore the conditions that some undocumented immigrants face when they cross the border between Mexico and the United States, with almost 2,000 having perished making the trek northward since 1997. [NOTE: Tom Tancred recently stated no immigrants have perished when crossing the border at legal ports of entry] [p. 12]
Roughly 40 states are now considering bills to provide undocumented migrants with access to driver’s licenses, and 18 are considering proposals to allow children of illegal immigrants to go to college. In 2001, California passed a law permitting undocumented immigrant students who attended state high schools for at least three years and graduated to qualify for instate tuition at public colleges and universities. Even conservative Utah has passed a law that permits undocumented immigrants to attend state colleges and universities, provided they have lived in Utah for at least three years. [pp.12/13]
Mexicans and Mexican-Americans living in the United States remit up to $10 billion per year back to Mexico, an amount greater than revenues generated from international tourists who visit Mexico. [NOTE: recent figures have doubled that amount to $20 billion.] These migradolares [ILLEGALS] are important for the economic well-being of scores of villages in Mexico, and in January 2003 the People’s Network was created, an Internet-based system that substantially lowers the transaction costs involved in transferring the funds and insures that more of the money will ultimately end up in Mexico [AIN'T THAT SPECIAL?]. [p.13]
Mexican states can also send representatives to a Mexican government facility in Santa Ana, California, where cross-border projects can be discussed and developed. [p.13]
In December 2002, the Mexican government helped to create a 120-member U.S.-based advisory council for its Institute for Mexicans Abroad. The initial selections included 72 Mexican immigrants and 28 U.S.-born citizens of Mexican descent, gathered from over half of the U.S. states. The group exists to publicize the plight of those who cross the border, both with and without documents, and the challenges that they face in terms of work, health care, education, housing, and other related issues. [p.13]
Policy Options
As stressed earlier, NAFTA has brought about aggregate economic gains for all three North American nations. This does not mean that individual companies or even economic sectors, especially noncompetitive manufacturing and agricultural niches, have not been hurt dramatically. Some of this damage, however, may have occurred even in the absence of NAFTA, particularly in manufacturing. As Mexico has opened itself to the rest of the world with its membership in NAFTA, the OECD, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC), and other international organizations, it has had to face growing competition from both developed and developing economies. Even today, Mexican wages in many manufacturing sectors are three times higher than those found in certain parts of China, and under such circumstances, it becomes more difficult to secure domestic investment and attract foreign investment unless major gains are achieved in labor productivity, overall unit labor costs, and critical infrastructure modernization. [p.14]
There is mounting concern that the U.S. preoccupation with border security and international terrorism, combined with skyrocketing government and international debt, will hamper continental economic growth in 2003 and again in 2004. Most U.S. state governments are suffering through their worst fiscal crisis in decades, and the U.S. unemployment rate stands at a nine-year high. The U.S. Congress passed and President Bush signed a highly protectionist farm bill in 2002, which over the next decade will negatively affect agricultural trade with the NAFTA partners and in third-country markets around the world. [p.14]
In spite of these lingering concerns, some academics and government leaders have stepped forward to offer vigorous support for an ambitious integrative agenda for North America. Before assuming the presidency in December 2000, Vicente Fox voiced support for a European Union of North America, an institutional arrangement that would eventually result in the creation of a common market, the free movement of labor, and a common currency. Professor Robert Pastor of American University supports the creation of a North American Commission, a North American Parliamentary Group, and a permanent North American Court on Trade and Investment to replace the current NAFTA panels. He also favors the introduction of the amero as the new continental currency. Wendy Dobson of the University of Toronto believes that Canada should push for the "Big Idea" and propose to Washington some form of "common economic space" that would link security, defense, energy, and economics, although she suspects that such a project would have to be done bilaterally with the United States instead of trilaterally with Mexico. (see 34 Speech by Wendy Dobson to the North American Committee, Ottawa, October 24, 2002.) Former Canadian ambassador to the United States Allan Gotlieb follows this train of thought and believes that a Canada-U.S. customs union is within the realm of possibility. Queen’s University’s Tom Courchene, one of Canada’s leading international economists, supports the creation of a monetary union between the United States and Canada, arguing that Canadian provinces have evolved to the point that regional economic linkages with U.S. states are more important that east-west economic ties across Canada. (See Thomas J. Courchene, "The Case for a North American Currency Union," Policy Options (April 2003): 20–25, and the Globe and Mail (Toronto), May 31, 1999.)[p.15]
As for Mexico, its relationship with the United States has often been bitter, with the United States absorbing half of Mexico’s original territory, mostly by conquest, and provoking the famous lament from a nineteenth-century Mexican leader, "Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States!" Based on historical sensitivities, a blueprint for "NAFTA plus," a customs union, a common market, or even an EU-style arrangement would initially have to be proposed by governments in Ottawa or Mexico City and certainly not by the government in Washington, D.C. [p.16]
...Fox has likely been relegated to a lame-duck status over the final three years of his sexenio. Consequently, any significant revisions in Mexico-U.S. economic relations are probably on hold until either one or both national leaders leave office. [p.16]
Major or Minor Policy Initiatives?
Once new leaders [i.e., post-Bush and post-Fox] have become familiar with their surroundings along Sussex Drive in Los Pinos and perhaps even along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, it is still within the realm of possibility for Canada and/or Mexico to propose to the U.S. administration major steps to increase either bilateral integration or continental integration. [p.17]
The first critical step would be for Canada and Mexico to determine whether they can act in unison or would ultimately act separately. In the case of Ottawa, it may have to water down some of its aspirations if it joins with Mexico, especially in terms of the freer movement of labor and the creation of a binational court on trade and investment to replace the current NAFTA dispute-settlement mechanism....To be blunt, Canada and Mexico are not integrated economically, nor are they likely to be in the foreseeable future. The only reason that NAFTA exists is because when Salinas asked the senior Bush for a bilateral free-trade agreement, Mulroney worried that Mexico would receive better terms than had been accorded to Canada under CUSFTA, placing Canadian companies at a competitive disadvantage in the huge U.S. marketplace. Moreover, Canada was concerned about the hub-and-spoke scenario in which the United States would have separate agreements with Canada and Mexico, giving its companies open access to the three North American markets and leading to a concentration of European and Asian direct investment in the United States. [p.17]
The vote on Capitol Hill for a free-trade agreement with Canada was overwhelmingly favorable, whereas the vote for free trade with Mexico was highly contested, and a majority of Democrats in both chambers actually voted in opposition in spite of strong support for the agreement from the Clinton White House. This opposition stemmed in part from concerns about the loss of jobs to Mexico and Mexico’s lack of progress in cleaning up its environment. Worries about illegal immigration and drug trafficking simply solidified the argument of those who decided to vote against the historic accord. [p.17]
If Mexico City and Ottawa do decide to work together, a proposal might include some of the following:

replacement of current NAFTA dispute-settlement panels with a permanent court of trade and investment, a step that would lead to the creation of North American standards for a large segment of trade and investment activity;

broadening of criteria for professionals to live and work in all three countries and a pilot provision for the movement of seasonal workers;

concrete steps to create a North American security perimeter and further harmonization of immigration and refugee policies for those coming from non-NAFTA countries;

agreement to work together to bring about further multilateral liberalization of trade and investment activity within the structure of the Doha round of WTO negotiations. Each country would also be responsible for improving financial and other types of assistance for workers in noncompetitive industries who would be in danger of losing their jobs because of further liberalization of continental trade activity.[p.18]

There will not be a North American common market nor EU-style continental integration in the foreseeable future. The chances are also very remote that the amero or any other North American currency will be created over the next several decades. With the U.S. dollar already being the currency of preference for many Mexicans, with many large Canadian corporations doing their day-to-day accounting in U.S. dollars, and with the U.S. economy dwarfing the economies of its closest neighbors, it is not difficult to predict that the U.S. currency will become even more prevalent continentally. If Mexico and Canada were ever to adopt the U.S. dollar as their official currency, each nation might be accorded a seat on the Federal Reserve Board. Nonetheless, U.S. representatives on the board would continue to dominate the decisionmaking process and both Mexico City and Ottawa would be forfeiting a great deal of sovereignty over monetary policy and the setting of interest rates. Over time, the dollar, euro, and perhaps a new East Asian currency will dominate international economic transactions and begin to crowd out lesser currencies. This will not happen for many years but would be a plausible scenario explaining why Mexico and Canada may eventually embrace, albeit reluctantly, the U.S. dollar. [pp.18/19]
In the long term, North American economic integration will certainly intensify. Already, about 36 percent of global trade activity occurs within just four regional groupings: the EU, NAFTA, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Mercosur. [p.19]
NAFTA will be fully enacted in 2008, and it is now time to consider what happens next within the parameters of North America. Ottawa and Mexico City must be expected to take the lead, either in tandem or separately, in proposing new modes of economic integration with the United States or on a continental basis. North-south integration is continuing to expand and deepen in areas far away from the respective national capitals. It will be interesting to observe whether there is sufficient national political will to formalize by treaty what is already occurring in the private sector and among many of the state and provincial governments in the three North American nations.[p.19]