[hedgetrimmer]

"When you create a free trade area, you create a boom in commerce and investment,"

By transnational corporations. Everybody else pays the piper but no one else gets to dance.

[hedgetrimmer]

More on CAFTA.

[1rudeboy]

• CAFTA represents the second largest market for U.S. small business exports in Latin America, consuming over $4 billion dollars in consumer and industrial goods alone.

• U.S. small businesses create more than 37% of the value of U.S. exports to the CAFTA region, higher (as a percentage) than exports to the rest of the world.

• NAFTA has shown that free trade has been beneficial for U.S. small business exporters. From 1992 to 2002, U.S. small business share of total exports to the NAFTA countries grew by over 6%.

Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (.pdf file)

[cowboyway]

Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala

There's nobody down there left to do business with anyway. They're all in south Florida!

[Willie Green]

The state's citrus industry is supporting CAFTA after the Bush administration asked for help. The decision angered sugar and some vegetable interests because citrus doesn't face competition from the CAFTA countries, while they do. Some believe the citrus industry's support is simply payback for administration support of citrus on other issues.

In general, anybody intending to stay IN Florida agricultural production are going to be screwed. Those supporting CAFTA are most likely acquiring land to shift production offshore, and selling off their Florida holdings to real estate developers. Their imports will undercut those who try to continue production in Florida. If that isn't bad enough, the recent SCOTUS ruling will enable Jeb Bush to use eminent domain to condemn Florida farmland for the benefit of more real estate development as well.,

[MonroeDNA]

Unions are against it.

Therefore I'm for it.