CAFTA: Last Nail in the Coffin?

The American Conservative ^ | May 9, 2005 Issue | Patrick J. Buchanan

[A. Pole]

With U.S. prisons filling up with aliens, 10 million illegals here and counting, Californians fleeing east, savage Salvadorian gangs battling with machetes inside the Beltway, and Minutemen headed for the Arizona border, Rip Van Republican has awakened to the threat of open borders. Meanwhile, the White House dozes on.

But just as the chickens are coming home to roost on the Bush failure to defend America’s frontier, so they will soon be coming home on Bush’s embrace of free-trade fanaticism.

As I write, the Department of Commerce has just released the trade deficit numbers for February. Again, the monthly trade deficit set a record, $61 billion. In January-February 2005, the annual U.S. trade deficit was running $100 billion above the all-time record of $617 billion in 2004.

In the mail this week came the annual graphs and tables from Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services, who has patiently chronicled the decline and fall of the once-awesome U.S. industrial machine. Since 1992, when some of us urged the president’s father not to grant MFN to China, the returns are these:

• Between 1993 and 2004, the U.S. trade deficit with Beijing grew 700 percent to $162 billion.
• In the last decade, China’s total trade surplus at U.S. expense was $805 billion.
• China’s leading exports to us, which account for almost half her $162 billion trade surplus, came from shipments of computers, electrical machinery, and parts.
• Leading U.S. exports to China (Boeing alone excepted) were, in ascending order: meat, meat offal, fibers, ore, slag, ash, organic chemicals, fertilizers, copper, cereals, raw hides, skins, pulp of wood, cotton, and the big seller—oil seeds and oleaginous fruits (soybeans). All very, very high-tech stuff.

China’s surplus, the largest one nation has ever run against another, provides her with the hoard of cash to buy Russian and Western weaponry to menace Taiwan and the 7th Fleet and pile up the T-bills that give Beijing the leverage it enjoys today over the sinking U.S. dollar and shaky U.S. prosperity.

In the 1993 battle of NAFTA, the Clinton-Gore-Dole-Gingrich globalists predicted our trade surplus with Mexico would grow, Mexico would prosper, and illegal immigration would be easier to control. Either they deceived us, or they deceived themselves. For since NAFTA passed:

• The U.S. trade surplus with Mexico has vanished and the annual trade deficit is now running above $50 billion a year.
• The cumulative trade deficit with Mexico is now over $300 billion.
• 1.5 million illegal aliens are caught each year crossing our border and 500,000 make it in to take up residence and enjoy all the social programs a generous but over-taxed America can provide.

With Chrysler now a German company, GM and Ford down to less than half the U.S. auto market, and GM paper looking like Argentine bonds, Americans now import $188 billion worth of autos, trucks, and parts, three times what we export. Motown is no more king of the road.

With three million manufacturing jobs lost under Bush, the U.S. dollar looking like Monopoly money, trade deficits exploding, and our dependence on foreigners for oil, the critical components of our weapons, and the cash to finance our insatiable appetite for consumer goods all growing, one would think even Bush Republicans might pause before taking another great leap forward into a future of global free trade. One would be wrong.

For CAFTA, son of NAFTA, is at hand: the Central American Free Trade Agreement. The White House will bring it up, but only if enough Republicans can be bamboozled into going along. In return for access to our market, we get access to five Central American markets and the Dominican Republic—with a total economy the size of New Haven’s—47 million consumers, half of whom are living in poverty by their standards.

The highest per capita income in Central America is $9,000 a year in Costa Rica, which is less than the U.S. minimum wage. But CAFTA will enable agribusiness and transnational companies to set up shop in Central America to dump into the U.S. and drive our last family farmers out of business and kill our last manufacturing jobs in textile and apparel.

If there are any Reagan Democrats left still loyal to the GOP, CAFTA may see them off. For if the GOP passes CAFTA over Democratic opposition, Hillary’s party may just be able to take back North Carolina, Ohio, and a couple of bright red farm states as well.

[1rudeboy]

My impression is that material gain is as sacred to the freemarketeers as abortion and pederasty is to the liberals.

And government control of the economy to protectionists?

[Havoc]

Develope that analogy, which, that history repeats? I think you're capable of developing that analogy yourself. Give it a shot (no pun intended)

[1rudeboy]

Ok. The King engaged in protectionist/mercantilist policies that pissed us off, so we rebelled. What do I win?

[1rudeboy]

Very often it does. You are confusing profit with the Divine sanctification. Money god is a false idol.

As stated above, I'm more interested in my rights as granted by the U.S. Constitution, and not by some protectionist Taliban-wannabe.

[Havoc]

Protectionists? What, like Jefferson, Madison, Washington, et al.. those protectionists, who argued against the King's dabblings in the colonial tariff system - taxation without representation and all that. It's just like Congress now - there is no representation for the everyday American. The only motive being served is the King's profit motive. Taxation without representation - "and that's not fair". Being called a protectionist is a compliment if you haven't figured that out, redcoat.

[Havoc]

Uh, actually, he dabbled in anti-protectionist/mercantilist policies. It helps if you're honest.. Actually, scratch that, it helps us when you're not just as much because it shows what you're trying all along to hide from.

[Dog Gone]

Okay, we get the "vast profits" and those countries are already independent.

American business interests aren't opposed to CAFTA. They want it.

Take a look at the list.

[1rudeboy]

Right. Such as insisting that exports from the American Colonies travel by British ship, under the Navigation Act. Sounds like a true free-trader to me. Not.

[BIGLOOK]

Noted; point well made.

[Havoc]

Who's side are you arguing on? Do you know?

With offshoring, of course the business interests want it. The business interest at the time of the American revolution was the "King" that wanted it. The problem is that when the King got his way, every day americans lost their livelyhoods.
They could not make a living. And it's those everyday americans that the declaration served to protect. By protecting the local market, The freedom lovers put the colonists back to work in their own market. And that expounded upon for a few hundred years is what helped make this nation an economic powerhouse. Some american businesses want Cafta if it means exporting to other countries without duties. Of course those want it. But they are outweighed by the greater interest of the Average American whose rights and livelyhoods must be protected. Average Americans whome you see fit to disown and wiz on
for the sake of your greed as it were. When you boil it down, It becomes the colonists vs. the King all over again.
And your side has become the king.

[Havoc]

Yep, the King was a true blue free trader. If it profitted him, there should be no tariffs. That's why we got so good at shooting guys that wore red and marched in a straight line..

[Dog Gone]

Your analogy is so fundamentally flawed that it's absurd. The CAFTA nations are not our colonies.

Nor will CAFTA cost us jobs. Hello, when we sell more, it means more jobs for us.

[Havoc]

I might add one last thing. As an American, your rights end where mine begin and vice versa. The minute what you're doing interferes with my rights, you're walking on me. The only thing you guys are interested in is your own rights - which are not going unserved - you're making a living and a profit.
But to make more, you'd put me out of work (and have, I might add). That's when your rights walked on mine. And that's when I join the patriots.

[hershey]

I read the first sentence and thought, Hmmm, could this be Pat? Well, of course! The White House thinks they can 'integrate' with Mexico, since it's practically a done deal , with most of the peasants not here already, heading north as fast as possible. GW will say, well, we just have to make the best of things. Thirteen or twenty million here...we can't send them all home, blah, blah, blah. Just wait until terrorists sneak over that leaky border and blow up L.A.. At that point it will become obvious to the most fanatical free trader that sovereignty and borders mean something and that the US should not be the world's biggest patsy.

[1rudeboy]

True free-trade. Riiiight.

In 1651, however, while Cromwell was master of England, the first of the famous Navigation Acts was passed. The chief provisions were, that no goods grown or manufactured in Asia, Africa, or America should be transported to England except in English vessels, and that the goods of any European country imported into England must be brought in British vessels, or in vessels of the country producing them. The law was directed against the Dutch maritime trade, which was very great at that time. But it was nowhere strictly enforced, and in New England scarcely at all. [footnote ommitted]

In 1660 the second of these memorable acts was passed, largely embodying the first and adding much to it. This act forbade the importing into or the exporting from the British colonies of any goods except in English or colonial ships2 and it forbade certain enumerated articles--tobacco, sugar, cotton, wool, dyeing woods, etc.--to he shipped to any country, except to England or some English plantation. Other goods were added at a later date. Such goods were to pay heavy duties when shipped to England, and in 1672 the same duties were imposed on goods sold from one colony to another. Had these laws been strictly enforced, the effect on the colonies that produced the "enumerated" articles would have been disastrous, for they enjoyed a flourishing trade in these goods with other countries. Other articles, such as grain, salt provisions, and fish, were not put on the list, because these were produced in England, and, had the entire colonial production been sent to that country, the English producer would have been ruined.3 Rice was also allowed to be shipped direct to all ports south of Cape Finisterre. Some things, however, the Parliament did purely to favor the colonies,--it prohibited the raising of tobacco in England and kept Spanish tobacco out by high duties, it kept out Swedish iron by a high tariff, to the advantage of the colonies, and it paid a bounty on various colonial products.

Source

[1rudeboy]

Please identify which right of yours is being violated. Thanks in advance.

[riri]

bkmking your post

[Havoc]

The analogy isn't flawed, it's your mindset in trying to employ the analogy at its basest point. Nafta has cost us jobs and Cafta will as well. When we sell more, it does not mean more jobs for us. That logistic got broken with the tariff system and offshoring. More profit means businesses can afford to setup shop overseas and sell back to this market because that is more profitable than setting up shop here and selling here. But that doesn't help you to admit.

The king profitted by removing tariffs and dumping British product on the colonies - putting colonists out of work. The Business interests and politicians are profiting from killing tariffs and putting americans out of work. Of course the analogy fails - for you. If it doesn't, that makes you a redcoat.. so of course there have to be knit picky details you can call on to say - "ope, tha analogy fails here". It doesn't fail on it's primary issue.. it's dead on. But that's the part of it you have to show fails, and you cannot. This is where you say "long live the king".

[Dog Gone]

Your tagline is interesting, by the way. Reagan first proposed NAFTA during his 1980 presidential campaign. It's his baby.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

"With Chrysler now a German company, GM and Ford down to less than half the U.S. auto market, and GM paper looking like Argentine bonds, Americans now import $188 billion worth of autos, trucks, and parts, three times what we export. Motown is no more king of the road."

This has nothing to do with free trade--except for Detroit being unwilling to deliver a reliable car at a reasonable price.