Posted on 07/09/2005 2:01:21 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
TWIN FALLS, Idaho -- "CAFTA is NAFTA on steroids," said Kent Snyder, executive director of The Liberty Committee, a group whose motto is "Political Action From Principle."
Affiliated with congressional representative Ron Paul, R-Texas -- who also opposes the Central American Free Trade Agreement-Dominican Republic -- the committee holds that CAFTA-DR, like the decade-old North American Free Trade Agreement isn't really about true free trade; it's about global managed trade.
"Think about it," Snyder said. "Why does it take over 1,000 pages to define free trade?"
In administrative works for several years CAFTA would create a NAFTA-like free trade zone between the United States and six other countries -- the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. It would erase most quotas and tariffs on imported goods and services. The trade agreement finally reached a Senate vote June 30. It passed by a narrow margin of 54-45 and moves to the House for a vote sometime next week.
Snyder said the agreement will no doubt be decided "by as little as three or four votes."
"The upcoming vote on CAFTA promises a replay of mafia-style tactics used to coerce votes from reluctant House members," he said. "Already, arms are being twisted; deals and pork payoffs are being made with your tax dollars; political threats have been issued -- and that's only the beginning."
Relinquishing U.S. sovereignty is the biggest reason to oppose CAFTA, he said.
"Then it's the economy, and the list goes down from there," he said.
Snyder referenced CAFTA-DR article 10.16.3 that "places the United States under the jurisdiction of international tribunals supervised by the United Nations."
Article 10.5.2 says international tribunals must use "customary international law" as established by "principle legal systems of the world" when deciding cases.
"CAFTA, like NAFTA, treats the U.S. Constitution like a relic," Snyder said.
Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center, Warrenton, Va., said U.S. sovereignty is absolutely the No. 1 concern with CAFTA.
"Sovereignty is a question of who is in control," he said. "A nation should be in control of it own destiny and should not voluntarily relinquish that control.
"CAFTA is a danger to our independence and to our sovereignty, and it is the job of the U.S. government to protect Americans first," he said.
DeWeese said the trade agreement, like those that have gone before it are simply "a raid on our economy."
"It is a redistribution of wealth, and who has the most wealth?" he asked. "The United States does."
DeWeese said he supports free trade but not the "CAFTA truckload of regulations that tell you how to do it."
Information from the United States Trade Representative's office confirmed that CAFTA-DR countries already enjoy duty free access to the United States on up to 80 percent of their goods exported to the United States. For agriculture exports, CAFTA would reduce tariffs on many U.S goods going to Central America, but just as many would not be duty-free for at least another one to 15 years, the USTR office said.
Under the agreement, American taxpayers will also pay to develop trade with those nations. National Action Plans have been designed to identify each country's trade-capacity-building needs and funnel money from public (and private) sources ... "to make the transition and changes necessary to realize the linkage between trade and development."
Joel Gill, membership chairman for R-CALF USA, a national cattlemen's group, traveled on a fact-finding mission to Central America.
Gill said under CAFTA-DR, normal trade relations using supply quota for imports are not included.
"Beef has been declassified as a perishable and cyclical product, making it immune to 'snapbacks' or quotas of beef entering the country," he said.
Gill noted, too, that the two biggest cattle-producing countries in South America, Argentina and Brazil, could begin shipping cattle to Central America and then on to the United States under CAFTA-DR.
"We are being told that CAFTA is really the model for other trade agreements, like the Free Trade Area of the Americas," he said, adding the FTAA plans to link 34 nations -- the Western Hemisphere -- under one trade agreement.
"Brazil alone produces as much beef as the United State does," Gill said.
Observing intense poverty in some Central American countries, Gill said he isn't buying the claims of equitable trade opportunities.
"Their food-delivery system is sometimes a man on a bicycle with half a beef cutting off pieces for people to buy." That, he said, "flies in the face of all the great trading opportunities we are hearing about with CAFTA."
Idaho opposed
* Sen. Mike Crapo: Growers were not satisfied by administration promises to buy or keep out subsidized sugar entering the country under CAFTA, NAFTA, and new free trade agreements until the end of the current Farm Bill.
* Sen. Larry Craig: The United States should not trade one aspect of our economy for another. This agreement sacrifices the sugar industry -- a vital component of rural, southern Idaho.
RFB:
Another student of Saul Alinksi. My my its interesting how CAFTA always brings your type out of the woodwork.
Your insults are demeaning and do not promote a favorable impression of your side of the discussion.
Communists co-opt words all the time, if the communist anarchists use the word globalist, does that mean they own it now? No one else can use it?
The short answer is local code inspectors do have to follow international law,To quote Al Borland: "I don't think so Tim".
Besides, given what you've cited here you're mixing local 'building codes' in with something about forest fire fighting and what appears to be 'locally adopted' regulations that also appear somewhere else; this in itself does not seem onerous - and THAT is what you have to point out, the onerous part that is. I can't simply allow you to infer via a quote in an article that something is 'bad' simply because it was 'copied' from a foreign source ...
Truth About Trade and Technology is a pro-free trade organization. If a news entity puts out articles that represent both sides of an issue, you think that somehow negates another persons point of view? Freerepublic has articles from both sides of the CAFTA issue, and in depth discussion. Should its credibility be questioned because of that? Should a person be barred from using Freerepublic as a resource in a discussion because they allow both sides of a discussion to be posted?
The feds are putting a regulatory tariff on US businesses; giving them a trade agreement is giving the feds more power at the expense of independent machine shops, metal finishers, farmers, etc..
I was for CAFTA until I studied it. Get the data sheet on CAFTA; it's in the July newsletter at thotline.com.
Read it, then look at what the feds are doing to the US.
Communists co-opt words all the time,Like those Seattle anti-globalists?
Your're probably right ... so, why are you all anti-progress and pro-protectionist?
Have you studied what factors lead up to the Great Depression (PROTECTIONISM)?
As a pro-CAFTA person (I'd say globalist but the Seattle anarchists own that word now), how do you feel about sustainable development?
You need to produce the text that says "local building codes will be overridden" by some onerous foreign body now ...
Often foreign professionals are just as qualified if not more so then American trained professionals. Just a protectionist attitude keeps them out.. same sort of French fear of the 'polish plumber'.
It sounds pretty smart at first, limiting supply in a profession to increase the compensation. And it does work if there is only one profession doing it. The problem is every profession does it, so the cost of everything dramatically rises. The net result is actually a decrease in the standard of living.
The feds are putting a regulatory tariff on US businesses;???
Is THIS not a legitimate function/duty/right/power of the fedgov - since COLONIAL times I might add (taxes/tariffs on goods exported/imported from the country)?
Cough.......
PAYING BRIBES/accepting same and 'putting a thumb on the scale' are as old as mankind and KNOWN about by anybody with street sense, unless, of course you just fell off the turnip truck ...
Hey, Mr. Turnip..... (to the tune of Hey Mr. Custer, I don't wanna go.................)
Do you really think there is text telling folks to look the other way??? Bwaaaaaahahhaaa.... Yes, everyone always follows the rules... just like Democrats follow rules on hipocrisy. This is too funny...
Do you really think there is text telling folks to look the other way???Yeah, I do (if certain 'things' are to be believed)
See the Alex Jones line of disinfo -er- propagada -er- material I posted on the previous page (WHICH I presume yiu skipped over since it wasn't addressed to you BUT is now directly applicable).
I will state up front, if I haven't already, that I think you are at a decided disadvantage in this current discussion (very likely) owing to various hormonal, emotional and (lack of) comprehension factors.
I just don't want you to cry and become emotionally uncontrolled when it isn't entirely my fault - I have now issued what I consider 'fair warning'.
Again the co opting.Folks, he's hopeless!
He's got his head planted in the sand ...
Have you had any luck finding the text that says "local building codes will be overridden" by some onerous foreign body yet?
And are you a sustainable developer?
roflmao..
Yes, if I'm emotional you must let me know. So far, I've not pointed out your um...shortcomings... but.. please have at it.
I'll wait.
I don't personally believe China needs America's help in developing its economy. I think with trade and selling them things we speed it up. But even then how much do we really speed it up? We aren't the only developed nation, for example in cell phones all the big players are there. If Motorolla dropped out, it would just hurt our companies, it wouldn't have that much impact on China.
Trade makes both partners wealthier, so trading with China helps us too. Right now they aren't inventing much yet, so its mainly in low cost products, keeping inflation down. And them importing world resources, helping resource exporters.
sustainable developerYou never answered *my* first question which is still on the floor - "what is a globalist"
I found a WHOLE lot of nut-ball stuff doing a Gooooooogle search, but somehow I don't think you're as loopy as the sources I quoted; we need your working definition of 'globalist'.
We also need your idea of just what kind of 'trade chains' you think mankind in this hemisphere should be saddled with; I say take them all off and let trade flow freely (Libertarian viewpoint).
Your idea would seem to involve at least 'keeping things as they are' with an active Customs/tax collecting agency actively 'taxing' anything that moves in or out of the country ...
Say goodnight Jane.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.