Pell GRANT! Pell GRANT! Pell GRANT!
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.
CAFTA is the answer to China's growing power.
No.. The answer is for China to remove the peg to the US Dollar for their currency. If they refuse to do so ASAP, then we need an administration that has the balls to immediately impose tariffs across the board.
We don't need to drag central America into the geopolitical arena that we've raised China into. The ChiComs are a monster of our own creation, and only the US can do something about it. Unless, that is, we WANT to be consumed by the rest of the world's low wages, low standards of living, and corrupt unaccountable government.
The founders never said that Liberty was free - far from it. The Free Traders only care about the cheapest bottom line - they don't understand "value" when it comes to maintaining the ability to feed, arm, and defend your own nation. "Nation" is antithetical to their goals.
Globalists=Free Traders=Open Borders=Incremental Communism=National Enemies
Sorry, we'll be taking a different path here, as soon as possible. Nice try though. We've decided that the USA is worth more to us than the cheap lettuce and the cheap gadgets. FAIR TRADE, NOT UNILATERAL FREE TRADE. Agreements are a two way street.
So she always had influence? Before all the WalMart money? Thanks.
I guess when your people are starving it's hard to "rumble about the world".
Was it rumbling when they sent millions (?) of troops into Korea in the 1950s? Did they have influence then? Just wondering.
Do you understand that 80% of the products from CAFTA-DR countries already enter the U.S. duty-free? Why shouldn't our exports be treated the same way? Isn't that FAIR TRADE?
Pell GRANT! Pell GRANT! Pell GRANT!
So free trade (less government interference in trade) equals communism (total government interference in everything)? I can count on you protectionists to screw up the math. You see when you have an (=) the stuff on the left side should equal the stuff on the right side.
Oh, wait, public school? That would explain a lot. Never mind.
I'd say 0% tariffs are less interference than 100% tariffs. I'd say 0% tariffs are less interference than 50% tariffs. I'd say 0% tariffs are less interference than 25% tariffs. Heck, I'd even say 0% tariffs are less interference than 10% tariffs.
You never did tell us what you do. Are you a professional hedge trimmer?
Gee, I don't know. Maybe it came from the same place they got the money to join the nuclear club, what was it, 40 years ago?
Did WalMart pay for China's nuke program?
"Did Wal-mart pay for China's Nuke program?"
Nahh, just the delivery system.
Is Trade Adjustment Assistance less interference or more interference? Is USAID less interference or more interference? Is the DOL in central America less interference or more interference? Is the EPA in central American less interference or more interference?
They didn't pay for it, Clinton gave it to them.
Is he one the air now?
I suspect he is saying that less government interference is generally a good thing.
Every year for the last decade, the Index of Economic Freedom, which we at The Heritage Foundation publish with The Wall Street Journal, has shown a strong link between economic freedom and economic growth. For readers with any acquaintance at all with how markets work, this conclusion probably seems obvious. Yet Doug Henwood of the Left Business Observer recently demonstrated how hard it is for some people to grasp it. [no doubt]
Source.
If the net effect is lower tariffs and more trade then I'd say less interference. Look, you can't get me to defend government bureaucracy and pork. I won't do it.
If I were in charge and had the power I'd cut the federal government by 70%, but seeing as I'm not in charge and don't have the power I'll just have to be happy with trade agreements that reduce barriers and increase trade. Even if they aren't perfect enough for the lawn care professionals on this thread.
CAFTA, like NAFTA, is designed to achieve what former Vice President Gore demanded: "a better distribution of jobs." This, of course, is one of the major goals of the socialists who are in virtual control of our country.
If my job is exported it doesn't matter to which country it goes, I'm out of work.
CAFTA will provide favorable tariffs as well as lower labor costs for multinational corporations who are always looking for ways to lower costs. The principal U. S. export under CAFTA will be manufacturing jobs to the low-wage countries of South America.
The flaw in the thinking of our trade policy makers is that if the standard of living is lowered in America, who will buy the junk produced in El Salvador etc?
CAFTA, like NAFTA, is designed to achieve what former Vice President Gore demanded: "a better distribution of jobs." This, of course, is one of the major goals of the socialists who are in virtual control of our country.
If my job is exported it doesn't matter to which country it goes, I'm out of work.
CAFTA will provide favorable tariffs as well as lower labor costs for multinational corporations who are always looking for ways to lower costs. The principal U. S. export under CAFTA will be manufacturing jobs to the low-wage countries of South America.
The flaw in the thinking of our trade policy makers is that if the standard of living is lowered in America, who will buy the junk produced in El Salvador etc?
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