Posted on 06/07/2005 8:39:01 AM PDT by antisocial
CAFTA: More Bureaucracy, Less Free Trade
June 6, 2005
The Central America Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA, will be the source of intense political debate in Washington this summer. The House of Representatives will vote on CAFTA ratification in June, while the Senate likely will vote in July.
I oppose CAFTA for a very simple reason: it is unconstitutional. The Constitution clearly grants Congress alone the authority to regulate international trade. The plain text of Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 is incontrovertible. Neither Congress nor the President can give this authority away by treaty, any more than they can repeal the First Amendment by treaty. This fundamental point, based on the plain meaning of the Constitution, cannot be overstated. Every member of Congress who votes for CAFTA is voting to abdicate power to an international body in direct violation of the Constitution.
We don’t need government agreements to have free trade. We merely need to lower or eliminate taxes on the American people, without regard to what other nations do. Remember, tariffs are simply taxes on consumers. Americans have always bought goods from abroad; the only question is how much our government taxes us for doing so. As economist Henry Hazlitt explained, tariffs simply protect politically-favored special interests at the expense of consumers, while lowering wages across the economy as a whole. Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and countless other economists have demolished every fallacy concerning tariffs, proving conclusively that unilateral elimination of tariffs benefits the American people. We don’t need CAFTA or any other international agreement to reap the economic benefits promised by CAFTA supporters, we only need to change our own harmful economic and tax policies. Let the rest of the world hurt their citizens with tariffs; if we simply reduce tariffs and taxes at home, we will attract capital and see our economy flourish.
It is absurd to believe that CAFTA and other trade agreements do not diminish American sovereignty. When we grant quasi-governmental international bodies the power to make decisions about American trade rules, we lose sovereignty plain and simple. I can assure you first hand that Congress has changed American tax laws for the sole reason that the World Trade Organization decided our rules unfairly impacted the European Union. Hundreds of tax bills languish in the House Ways and Means committee, while the one bill drafted strictly to satisfy the WTO was brought to the floor and passed with great urgency last year.
The tax bill in question is just the tip of the iceberg. The quasi-judicial regime created under CAFTA will have the same power to coerce our cowardly legislature into changing American laws in the future. Labor and environmental rules are inherently associated with trade laws, and we can be sure that CAFTA will provide yet another avenue for globalists to impose the Kyoto Accord and similar agreements on the American people. CAFTA also imposes the International Labor Organization’s manifesto, which could have been written by Karl Marx, on American business. I encourage every conservative and libertarian who supports CAFTA to read the ILO declaration and consider whether they still believe the treaty will make America more free.
CAFTA means more government! Like the UN, NAFTA, and the WTO, it represents another stone in the foundation of a global government system. Most Americans already understand they are governed by largely unaccountable forces in Washington, yet now they face having their domestic laws influenced by bureaucrats in Brussels, Zurich, or Mexico City.
CAFTA and other international trade agreements do not represent free trade. Free trade occurs in the absence of government interference in the flow of goods, while CAFTA represents more government in the form of an international body. It is incompatible with our Constitution and national sovereignty, and we don’t need it to benefit from international trade.
That is why I will NEVER vote for another candidate that is in favor of free trade agreements.
Worth repeating to all those who claim that only tin-foilers could object to these "free trade" agreements.
Good morning and FYI
Thanks for the ping HT.. Excellent find.. We need to clue Rich Lowery in now over at JWR.
If you liked NAFTA, you will love how CAFTA screws this country.
Before GATT:
Subject to final approval by the President, Congress enacted all laws governing this Nation and its people.
*The people of this Nation voted directly for those who made our laws.
*Congress, alone, regulated commerce with foreign nations.
*The Supreme Court was the final and only authority over United States law.
After GATT:
The power to enact laws has been divided between Congress and the WTO. Furthermore, The president does not have veto power over laws established by the WTO.
*The people of this Nation no longer vote directly for those who make our laws.
*Congress no longer regulates commerce with foreign nations and this authority now resides with the WTO.
*The judicial review authority of our Supreme Court has been divided between the Supreme Court and WTO.
*Furthermore, the situation is such that our Supreme Court cannot overrule a WTO ruling without violating our agreements with that organization.
Did NAFTA screw the country? How?
Thanks. Ron Paul is always a good read.
Ping! Great article!
Interesting find:
[snip] A November 1993 agreement between the U.S. and Mexico, also related to NAFTA, establishing the Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC) which works with local communities to develop and certify environmental infrastructure projects such as wastewater treatment plants, drinking water systems, and solid waste disposal facilities. The sister organization, the North American Development Bank (NADBank), uses capital and grant funds contributed by partner governments to help finance border environmental infrastructure projects certified by the BECC. The U.S. and Mexico are in the process of combining the Board of Directors from both the BECC and the NADBank into a single institution. The resulting single board will streamline the project certification cycle and provide an increase in environmental infrastructure.
Source: http://www.traveldocs.com/mx/foreign.htm
The best article I have read on the subject.
If you don't vote in favor of free trade, you lose.
It doesn't even matter if it is a free trade bill or not.
Looking at the 7 new senators, all of them ran as pro-free trade, and the candidates who didn't all lost.
Except for hold over incumbants, being anti-free trade is the death knell in elections.
Voters equate free trade with lower prices and anti free trade as higher prices.....and no matter what anyone says, in the voting booth lower prices wins.
It amazes me how many "conservatives" buy into the Free Trade Ca-Ca.
Thanks
I sure can't disagree with him.
"To bad free trade isn't a real political issue anymore.
If you don't vote in favor of free trade, you lose."
There is very little support in the house for passing CAFTA
I hope opposition to it continues to grow.
I can not read CAFTA (at something like 25,000 pages good luck to anyone who can), but its definatly a bill that needs alot of work (or just scrap it and start over again).
That said, I got a feeling it is going to pass. If its gets to the senate, its getting ratified.
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