by Gary Betts

Created on: August 01, 2007

The United States is doing nothing to help with the rising gas prices. They could help by reducing gasoline taxes or getting serious about alternative fuels. But none of that is going to happen. The real villain in the rise of gas prices is the world price of crude oil. When oil goes up in price, gas also goes up. When oil drops in price, gas follows suit.

The only way to beat that system is to have a self-contained supply of oil and cut all oil imports. This would give the government the power to control the internal price of oil. Plus the United States would not have to worry about oil being cut off at the whim of some foreigner. But the United States cannot do this alone. How about a union of North America?

The union would be similar to that of the European Union. It would involve Canada, the United States and Mexico. The North American Union would be a powerful force in the world. It would be economically independent, able to grow crops from the tropics to the temperate zone. It would also be self sufficient in oil. The Union would not have to trade with the rest of the world, unless it was on its terms. And the days of fighting wars for oil would be over. Here's how we can do it.

According to the Energy Information Administration(EIA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Energy, the following are the proven oil reserves in North America as of January 01, 2007:
Canada 179 billion barrels of oil(second in the world only to Saudi Arabia)
U.S.A. 21 billion barrels of oil
Mexico 12 billion barrels of oil
North American total 212 billion barrels of oil

According to the EIA, the following is a list of the top countries from which the U.S. imports oil in May 2007:
Canada 2.5 million barrels a day
Mexico 1.6 million barrels a day
Saudi Arabia 1.6 million barrels a day
World total 14.2 million barrels a day.

According to the EIA, the following is oil production in 2004:
U.S.A. 5.4 million barrels a day
Mexico 3.4 million barrels a day
Canada 2.4 million barrels a day
North America total 11.2 million barrels a day

According to the EIA, the following is oil consumption in 2004
U.S.A. 20.7 million barrels a day
Canada 2.3 million barrels a day
Mexico 2.0 million barrels a day
North American total 25.0 million barrels a day.

What do all these numbers show? They show that Canada and Mexico are the top two exporters of oil to the U.S. So the infrastructure to deliver the oil is already there. They also show that North American oil consumption is outstripping North American oil production by 13.8 million barrels a day. The problem in making up this deficit lies with Canada. According to these figures, Canadian oil production, when compared to the proven oil reserves, is lagging far behind the U.S. and Mexico. If Canadian production was increased to the same level as that in the U.S. and Mexico, Canadian production would increase to 44.8 million barrels a day. This would far exceed the North American deficit in oil.

So, it can be done. A North American Union would benefit all three countries involved. Plus the Union would bring Mexican economic lives to the same level as the rest of North America, so they would probably be happy to stay home. And we could finally get rid of trade with China, where they hold a huge surplus for inferior goods. A North America Union is a win-win situation.

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