The Conspiratorial Urban Legend of the Evil NAFTA Superhighway

摘要

No such thing exists, but this fantasy of terror has the anti-trade wing up in arms. Will it be the sleeper issue of 2008? The questions surprised even a presidential candidate as poised as Mitt Romney. A bespectacled, matronly woman at the back of the audience in Story City, Iowa, had heard news about an enormous highway being built between across the Midwest, linking Mexico and Canada. "You can find it on the Internet, a Security and Prosperity Partnership that's been working for a while to join the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and part of it is a NAFTA superhighway," she explained. She rejected Romney's dismissal that the story was make-believe. "I don't think they're talking about it," she retorted. Rather than argue, he offered a vague promise - "if they are building it, I'll stop it" - and quickly took another question. The "superhighway question" recurred often on the GOP campaign trail. Rudy Giuliani got it in Concord, New Hampshire. In Cedar Falls, Iowa, John McCain was asked what he knew about secret plans for a highway "to unite the three nations together."