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.

[hedgetrimmer]

I don't like the taxpayer subsidizing "Free traders". How's that!

[hedgetrimmer]

Oh so you're the Berkeley student. Yet you accused me!

[Toddsterpatriot]

No wonder you have such a bizarre position on this matter. You're completely misinformed.

Surprisingly uninformed considering he's a math major.

[hedgetrimmer]

when the protectionist get together to vent

It looks to me like old home week for the "Free traders". 1rudeboy, toddsterpatriot,Dog Gone.. they're all here!

Must've hit a nerve or something to have them all suddenly pop in.

[Toddsterpatriot]

We smelled all the ignorant targets on the thread.

[hedgetrimmer]

Yes, the free traders can be counted on for civil rational discourse. Thanks. And thanks for bumping the thread.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Careful the OAS can hear you. Wacko.

[hedgetrimmer]

These guys bump the threads on "free trade" all the time. It helps to keep the topic on the top of the list. It helps us to get the facts out.

[hedgetrimmer]

Another bump. Thanks

[Toddsterpatriot]

Bump to all the math challenged with poor understanding of economics. This means you.

[Mase]

how does that translate into needing lots of state intervention?

How else are you going to implement your protectionist policies?

The constitutional government developed by our founders is the system that meets my standards

Again, where are all the lawsuits challenging the many unconstitutional actions you say have been promulgated by the free-traders?

It isn't our system that is the envy of the world, it is our wealth.

Sorry, not mutually exclusive.

I would definitely say the destruction of our industry is a tariff on the United States.

Are we producing more goods now than we were 10 years ago? 20 years ago? 30?

[Mase]

The farmers with their capital invested mainly in US land are hurting

More absurdity. I'd sure like to be hurting like them.

[Mase]

Oh so you're the Berkeley student. Yet you accused me!

I find it interesting that almost 30 years ago, hardened socialist professors there were promoting the same kind of paranoia and misinformation you are today.

Just thought you might have stayed for the full 4 year indoctrination.

[Mase]

It helps us to get the facts out.

Apparently not before they go through your spin cycle.

[hedgetrimmer]

I find it interesting that almost 30 years ago, hardened socialist professors there were promoting the same kind of paranoia and misinformation you are today.

Socialists love free trade. I can tell you right now that the most favored candidate to run the WTO is a french socialist Pascal Lamy. If socialists hate "Free trade" so much, why to they run the WTO and the EU? Nothing you say has any basis in the facts.

[hedgetrimmer]

Sorry, you are the one trying to twist the words that more indivual rights mean less government.

[hedgetrimmer]

More absurdity. I'd sure like to be hurting like them.

So you want a trade minister to tell you you can't produce as much food as you have capacity for because the United States is being forced to import products from third world countries in the agreement?

And you want to have enviromental groups force large chunks of your land out of production because of easements? And you want to have your private water wells metered and pay tax for using your own water? And you want to have your production costs skyrocket because you have to file a plan if you only even INTEND to irrigate your land? I think you are not really clear what is going on in agriculture in this country.

[hedgetrimmer]

Oh, you've changed your tagline.

[raybbr]

Can you identify however, any system in the world today that meets your high standards? Fact is, our system is still the envy of the world.

Can you identify any case where free trade exists and benefits everyone involved?

Free trade, as the globalists see it, does not and has not ever existed. It is a theory. One that has never been tested or proved. Yet, according to super-capitalists like yourself, we are to believe it will work and we all will benefit.

Sort of like, "The rising tide lifts all boats"? What you all fail to mention is that if the tide is rising here it's lowering somewhere else. Conversely, if it is rising in South America it is lowering here.

It's sad that super-capitalists think that whipping a little capitalism on every problem is the answer.

We live in a society. Not a market. We have a market economy. Our society, however, is suppoesed to have morals and take into account all the weaknesses of humanity. Capitalism preys on those weaknesses just like communism does.