Who would've thought that the fix was in since the Reagan Administration?
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, 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?
One would think after decades of these free trade agreements, one would actually see a lower standard of living.
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?
Who would've thought that the fix was in since the Reagan Administration?
Will tariffs be lowered, even with the "extra" bureaucracy? Will trade increase? Then I won't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
You never did say what you do for a living. Are you unemployed? Job outsourced to Central America? Just wondering, will you ever answer?
Then you support CAFTA? Wouldn't want to build up China, right?
So we have fewer jobs now? I thought we had 20 million more jobs since NAFTA passed.
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?
So, our standard of living has dropped? I don't suppose you have any data to back up your assertion?
I'm just a small businessman, stuck in a blue state. Obviously not fully aware of the nuances of world trade. But I do know Karl Marx was a free trader and Hitler destroyed the labor unions to ensure German firms could 'compete' any where in the world. (Check Ford Motor's Ford Werks in Germany pattern's of trading in South America, pre-WW2). My interest is leaving a safer world for my grandkids. I just don't see the Butchers of Tamamen(Sp) Square as people we can do business with. As it has been posted here many, many times, there are winners and losers in "Free Trade", my experience is that people who are out of work or hope for same (or wishing to avoid same LOL) vote Democrat. The Demos, in my simple country boy experience are a threat to the future of my grandkids health, safety and well being.
I am laughing too hard to respond.
Quote: If the United States is so hated in El Centro America then why is it we have so many immigrants (legal and illegal) from there?
Free healthcare, welfare, housing, food stamps, heap etc etc etc.
Try entering "Karl Marx Free Trade" into your brain, and we'll talk.
The "CA" stands for "CENTRAL AMERICA"
So why is it they don't seem to hate us if they're not getting all the free stuff?
They're like George Soros and his cronies ~ they think dope is good, and it burns them every single time.
Well, that attitude, and the fact they think like the Algore/Dean wing of the Demcratic party.
They're probably already working on the next program of self destruction.
If we're lucky they'll take the Democratic party and George Soros with them!
Where's the "Aw Geez, not this sh!t again" guy when you really need him?
"it is the high price of domestic sugar-which can range anywhere from two to three or more times world sugar prices-that is sending manufacturers scurrying beyond the U.S.' borders. Adding to the pain is the fact that it is U.S. government subsidies to domestic sugar producers and tariffs against sugar imports that have artificially inflated the prices.
Bitter Goodbye (To American Manufacturing Jobs)
"Jobs created in the sugar industry are offset by job losses in the American candy and food industries and elsewhere.
So we negotiate a trade agreement with some of the poorest countries in the region but we make sure that one of the things that they do best, grow sugar, is essentially off the table. There is no attractive way to defend that policy when you’re standing in the fields of a poor country.
It makes no more sense for America to insist on always growing its own sugar than it does for Costa Rica to use protectionism to create a Costa Rican car industry."
Subcommittee on commerce, trade, and consumer protection
The protectionists should be pleased with CAFTA as it continues to protect and fill the pockets of a handful of inefficient U.S. sugar producers.
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