Posted on 05/24/2005 7:08:18 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
It really matters where the jobs that Americans lose go. That's what CAFTA is about. It's not about destroying textile jobs in the Carolinas. They're history, anyway--if not this year, then in five years. CAFTA is about keeping work in our hemisphere that would otherwise go to China.
The Central American Free Trade Agreement would cut tariffs on commerce among the United States, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. The Dominican Republic, which is in the Caribbean, also wants to join.
Though President Bush is battling hard for the accord, some observers declare it all but dead. The generally pro-trade New Democrat Coalition has just jumped ship. But new Democrats should think again and back CAFTA. So should old Democrats.
Organized labor doesn't want to hear this defeatist talk about managing losses. That's understandable. But while labor has been dealt a bad hand, it still must play the cards. That means choosing the least bad of bad options.
Some labor critics point to NAFTA as a reason to shoot down CAFTA. The 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement covered the United States, Canada and Mexico. Foes of these accords note, for example, that there were 127,000 textile and apparel jobs in South Carolina before NAFTA. Now there are 48,000.
The truth is, the United States was bleeding these kinds of factory jobs decades before NAFTA. And it's unclear how large a part NAFTA has played in the years since.
Many of these jobs were not sucked down to Mexico but over to China and other Asian countries. And of the lost jobs that can be traced to Mexico, how many would have simply gone to China instead, had it not been for NAFTA? Even Mexico has seen factories move to China.
Labor-intensive industries in America continue to fight a hopeless war against competitors paying pennies-an-hour wages. The futility of it all can be seen in the following numbers, provided by A.T. Kearney, a consulting firm:
It costs $135 to make 12 pairs of cotton trousers in the United States. It costs $57 to make the trousers in China and ship them here. It costs $69 to do so in other parts of the world.
In this business, the United States is clearly out of the running. But many low-wage countries are still contenders with China--especially if they can ship their products here tariff-free.
Americans would be better off if their imports came from Managua, rather than Guangdong. After all, our Latin neighbors are more likely to buy the things we have to sell. That's why farmers producing beef, pork and corn are all for these treaties. So are U.S. companies that make machinery, especially for construction.
Then there are foreign-policy considerations. CAFTA partners would include very poor countries with fragile democracies. More trade with the United States could stabilize them--and reduce the pressures on their people to come here illegally. And if the workers make more money, they'll be able to buy more American goods.
Some Democrats argue that these poor countries compete by exploiting their workers. Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., for example, opposes the accord because, he says, "the basic rights of working people in Central America are systematically repressed."
He has it backward. Economic desperation creates the conditions for oppression. Workers are strongest where jobs are plentiful. CAFTA could empower workers and lift them from grinding poverty.
Rather than protect jobs that will eventually leave America, labor and its Democratic allies should protect the people who lose them. Trade Adjustment Assistance is a federal program that offers financial help and training for Americans who lose jobs because of imports.
Democrats complain that the program is underfunded, and they are right. So why not make more money for Trade Adjustment Assistance a bargaining chip to win support for CAFTA?
There's no exit door out of this global economy. Parts of the American economy will do well in it; other parts will not. Free trade in the Americas is about joining with our neighbors in a common defense against China's growing power. Those are the true stakes, and fighting futile battles will only distract us from what matters.
And I have my own business, which like any enterprise needs buyers with spending money. One thing the Free Traders don't seem to understand is the smaller the middle class the less consumers there will eventually be to buy the products.
So all you need to do to convince me is to show that free(r) trade leads to lower income for Americans. You can't. Real incomes have risen since NAFTA.
Unless you have a source better than the U.S. Labor Department?
In fact, it will undoubtedly increase US exports to those countries of manufactured goods.
You haven't even tried to deny that so far.
So, other than some sort of vague assertion that globalism is bad and we should be opposing it, I haven't seen a specific argument that suggests that CAFTA is not in our interest.
The US government is paying for a feasiblity study so that an Idaho company will set up a silver mine in Central America. Its paid for by the USTR through the CAFTA.
What do you mean the government isn't encouraging relocation? Why would they pay for a private company to move down there? As Toddsterpatriot put it, CAFTA, like NAFTA and the FTAA is just corporate welfare.
From my experience with the Chinese, particularly immigrants I agree wholeheartedly with you. One look at Taiwan and Hong Kong and it's easy to see a people who are very good at capitalism.
The only difference with Mainland China is that communist imposed limitations on the free market, including a huge suppression of wages is undermining the American worker who can't compete with those making a $1.00 an hour. And they don't appear to want to give up that power anytime soon.
Now that makes sense-- I run an investment business too. That must be why we can delude ourselves with made up screwball factoids like high paying manufacturing jobs gone, or deficits out of control. If we only cared about winning an argument it wouldn't matter-- we actually have to check these things to be able to eat.
I'm not familiar with that provision, but relocating a silver company to a place where there is silver seems like a no brainer.
With the federal government paying for it??? That would work for Mussolini or any socialist government, but what you are supporting is utterly unAmerican.
The business of America is business, or so Calvin Coolidge told us.
You said yourself businesses are already free to go, what's to stop them once CAFTA is in place and they can flood their products into the US without much fear of retribution? Again I can post links all day, which has been done a million times on these threads and it does no good for those who are convinced, despite the overwhelming failure of NAFTA that this agreement will somehow be better.
Just the same I'm sure you'll be disputing this quote:
For businesses, the stakes are high. Manufacturers see a low-wage work force close to U.S. shores that could handle factory jobs for as little as 90 cents an hour – potential competition to Chinese workers who average 64 cents an hour.
The CAFTA conundrum: Critics say treaty offers too little in return for U.S.
You crack me up. You think they shouldn't set up a silver mine in Central America, WHERE THE SILVER IS?
You're right, we should mine silver where it doesn't exist. Maybe in Chicago. Keep high paying mining jobs here in Chicago.
You're a joke.
I really - really and I mean really hope they name the mine; "The San Sebastian Mines" LOL!
The federal government in the mining business now? What will you think of next! Move over entrepeneurs, your competition just got big, expensive and they can vote for their own competitive advantage because they write the laws!
I can think of nothing more unAmerican. But I'm sure you'll top it.
P.S
There is silver in Nevada!
Only a protectionist would think that "flooding" the US with goods is an act that requires retribution.
Let's see, a stable and friendly and growing Central America, our buddies, or the xenophobic Chinese who aren't our buddies.
Which would I like to see get stronger more quickly?
Because unless we're prepared to bomb all of them, they will get stronger. Progress and all that confusing stuff, ya know.
True enough, and nobody but you is suggesting that we're engaging in it.
You're a freakin' genius. You should open a mine there immediately!!! I'll keep your Nevada silver a secret.
Write me after you've made your millions, doofus.
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