Posted on 05/29/2004 10:43:43 AM PDT by Dog Gone
WASHINGTON — The United States and five Central American countries signed a free trade agreement Friday — subject to approval by the U.S. Congress.
The U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, would extend the North American Free Trade Agreement down most of the land bridge connecting Mexico to South America.
At a signing ceremony with ministers from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said approving CAFTA and a companion pact with the Dominican Republic would offer "new hope for easing poverty, fostering development and strengthening democracy" in a region racked by war and civil unrest during the 1980s.
Opponents, such as the AFL-CIO labor federation and Friends of the Earth, say CAFTA would have a devastating effect on workers, farmers and the environment.
They also say it would drive up health care costs in CAFTA countries by extending patent protections for U.S. pharmaceuticals.
The Bush administration says CAFTA's labor and environmental terms go further than previous trade pacts and follow guidelines Congress provided in 2002.
Most business groups, farm organizations and corporations support the agreement.
CAFTA would immediately eliminate duties on more than 80 percent of U.S. consumer and industrial exports to Central America and over 50 percent of U.S. farm goods.
Tariffs on other goods, except sugar on the U.S. side and a few sensitive farm products on the other, would be phased out over time.
The liberalidiots have painted themselves into a nice box. Drive jobs out of the country with environuttiness then complain that their unions have no more work.
If it's in excess of 30,000 pages, like NAFTA, unread by about 99% of those in Congress, it'll pass with ease.
NAFTA was bad enough.
But with CAFTA, we can reasonably expect Puerto Rico to decline into economic parity with Haiti...
Mainland states, like Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, the Carolinas, etc. have a further distance to drop
but their standard of living will also decline into parity with the poverty of other nations along the Gulf of Mexico.
CAFTA could have the effect of exporting US retirees south.
Oh, I suppose the Western Hemisphere is better. However without massive, massive investment there is no way that the likes of Nicaragua and Guatemala are going to even come close to China's productivity.
And liberal neocons like Robert Zoellick take advantage of that situation to gleefully demolish our own economic infrastructure.
I'm very much in favor of CAFTA. It's going to greatly increase our exports of food products to these countries, plus it opens those countries to US companies.
In Costa Rica, for example, the government had a monopoly on the insurance industry and in telecommunications. After CAFTA passes, Cingular and Verizon will be down there competing. The Costa Rica consumer will have access to Kellogg's Frosted Flake and American meat exports.
I looked for turkey in their supermarkets on my last trip and couldn't find any. That will change after CAFTA passes.
Additionally, the CAFTA countries have agreed to recognize American copyright and patents. This treaty will have huge benefits for America.
Are you saying that these are stable governments that will honor this treaty? I am not very well versed in the governments of SA but, I don't often hear that they are stable.
I've already decided that it's going to export me within the next 10 years, possibly 5.
pingarooski
Thanks for your comments. I've seen what NAFTA did for our nation. I expect CAFTA to do more of the same. It would be hard to imagine it, but you'll see far more illegal immigration as a result of this travesty. You'll see food stuffs from central America replace that industry in the United States. Yes, I can think of nothing better for the U.S. than to move our food production of shore, as we've done so much else.
I wish I could share your delight in this.
Costa Rica has a constitution much like our own, except that it has no army whatsoever. The government spends that money on education and health care.
All will observe the treaty. It's going to help their citizens, plus the US has a long history of going down there and kicking their butts when they get out of line.
The one place they could beat us is in sugar production, but CAFTA amazingly still protects the trade barriers we have for sugar (and that's why Americans pay more for sugar than any other country in the world).
Evidently you and I are shopping in different market chains. When I go to buy fruit, it's wonderful to find that it's direct from Australia. I live in California, which formerly produced one of the two largest orange crops for the nation.
When I pick up strawberries, they're from Mexico. I might add that some of those are tainted with human waste. You see, the sad little truth is that regulations south of our border are non-existant. That's another sad reality you gloss over.
I could go on.
Thanks for the comments.
Well, now the county has been turned into a city and the only local oranges might be on a tree you plant in your backyard.
NAFTA didn't drive American strawberry farmers out of business. And wash your fruit before you eat it, no matter where it was grown!
Yet they are fatter. GO figure.
LOL
I have to agree with Doughtyone. I am not nearly as enthusiastic about these deals as you. I suspect that you have business deals that will benefit from this.
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