Originally published on the CGS blog on July 14, 2014.
It would be much easier to move the US southern border further south to where it is only about five hundred miles wide rather than continuing the argument over the two-thousand-mile-wide US-Mexican border. Or, since we are pouring so much money and resources into assisting Central American States with their problems, maybe we should just move the effective border to the Panama Canal and get it over with. After all, the canal is only forty-eight miles long and would be much easier (and cheaper) to secure and manage as a border. So we need a North American Federal States system that stretches from the Panama Canal to the North Pole. But how does China influence this idea?
If Mexico, Canada, and the Central American States can be brought into a larger federal system, and can give their citizens representation in that federal union like the rest of us and tax them like the rest of us, it would give us a bigger voice in their States than we have now. And since we are already asssisting them with numerous financial aid packages and programs and giving them effective US citizenship rights anyway, then we should make the North American Federal States official. At least we would get something back for the influx of a large Latin diaspora wanting so desperately to be in the US, to be safe, secure, and contributing US citizens: NAFS citizens.
Then, with a larger federal system, we could more easily prevent China from becoming the next all-powerful global hegemonic state. As it stands today, the US will lose out to China in the global economy as China matures economically and politically. We simply do not have the numbers to be competitive against a mature Chinese economy, nor against a stronger European Union, nor a Eurasian Economic Confederation, nor a strong African Union—all are or will be larger than the US today.
The rise of a hegemonic China—a nearly inevitable event because of its massive and growing number of consumers and producers—is more than sufficient reason to increase rather than decrease, or limit, population sizes of strong regional federal unions globally. The only way to compete with a large, mature Chinese economy is for states to join in larger, more intertwined regional or global federal unions of states so that they may have a comparative competitive advantage.
It is for this reason that the EU was formed: to compete economically against the US and China and a potential Sino-Russian alliance. Again, size and numbers matter. It is also why there is now a weak African Union (but they will change to be more like the US, only bigger, as they too mature—another potential competitor in the near future). It is also why the Gulf States attempted to create a federal union of States in that region of the world. These regions and States know from history and experience the power of unity and strength of numbers, whether the people understand it or not. That is why North and Central America must do the same if those States are to stay relevant on the world stage into the future.
As economies mature and achieve relative parity with the US economy, then the burden is on the US to keep up and compete, but we cannot do it alone; it requires that North and Central America follow the example of Europe and Africa and create a North American Federal States system. The US border issue can be used to our combined advantage against other regional federations around the globe.
