Central American and South American countries, have been proposed, such as the North American Technate. In 2003, amid a push for greater integration and concerns in the fallout of the September 11 attacks about the impact of heightened security on trade relations, an effort organized by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, and the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations called the Independent Task Force on North America was initiated. Several weeks before a meeting of North American leaders on March 23, 2005 the Task Force issued a press release and a statement from the Task Force’s chairmen calling for deeper integration of NAFTA to form a North American Economic and Security Community by 2010.

The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) wasformed at the meeting of North American leaders. It was described by the leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United States as a dialogue to provide greater cooperation on security and economic issues.In response to later concerns, a section was put up on the initiative’s site clarifying the SPP was not a legal agreement, that the initiative “does not seek to rewrite or renegotiate NAFTA”, and that the partnership itself “creates no NAFTA-plus legal status.” A number of academics and government officials at the time viewed the SPP as moving North America towards greater integration.

The Task Force published a report in May 2005 which praised the SPP initiative and pushed for greater economic integration by 2010. They repeated their call for the “establishment by 2010 of a North