Posted on 07/17/2005 11:10:40 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
Congress will soon take up the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which many see as an extension of NAFTA and a precursor to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas that would convert all of North and South America into one integrated market.
Opinions about CAFTA's impact on the regional economy vary widely among members of Congress based largely on what the agreement will do for their constituents. But in the rush to highlight who wins and who loses when these trade barriers come down, almost everyone has overlooked the troubling non-trade provisions that are tucked into the voluminous document.
CAFTA would do more than just phase out tariffs and open new markets ---- a lot more. For example, buried among its nearly 1,000 pages, the agreement contains an expansive definition of "cross-border trade in services." This definition would give people in Central American nations a de facto right to work in the United States. CAFTA is more than a trade agreement about sugar and bananas. It is a thinly disguised immigration accord.
The immigration provisions are cloaked as "service agreements" in the document that have become standard fare in most trade agreements.
One article of CAFTA reads, "Cross-border trade in services or cross-border supply of services means the supply of a service ... by a national of a party in the territory of another party." CAFTA goes on to stipulate that member nations take care to ensure that local and national "measures relating to qualification requirements and procedures, technical standards and licensing requirements do not constitute unnecessary barriers to trade in services," and to guarantee that our domestic laws are "not in themselves a restriction on the supply of the service."
What those provisions mean is that a foreign company would be empowered under CAFTA to challenge the validity of our immigration laws. If an international tribunal rules against us, Congress would then be forced to change our immigration laws or face international trade sanctions. These tribunals have the authority to rule that U.S. immigration limits, visa requirements, or even licensing requirements and zoning rules are "unnecessary burdens to trade" that act as "restrictions on the supply of a service."
This hidden legislation to open the U.S. border is only the beginning.
The chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, which oversees most international trade matters, believes that these kinds of immigration provisions are fair game for future trade deals as well.
If CAFTA were really just about trade, the agreement would be little more than a few pages long, declaring that tariff treatment for U.S. and Central American goods will be on a reciprocal basis. But it isn't. In reality, CAFTA is about expanding a growing body of international law that supersedes our own.
If CAFTA is approved, Congress' "exclusive" authority to regulate immigration policy will be subjugated to the whim of international tribunals and trade panels ---- in much the same way that Congress' once supreme constitutional authority to "regulate commerce with foreign nations," has already been largely ceded to the WTO.
Thanks to Congressman Tancredo for the TRUTH about CAFTA.
You all might be interested in this one.
Tell it to the president. As if he didn't already know it.
Someone in Congress has some backbone:
U.S. Congress : McHenry disagrees with Bush on CAFTA
BY ANDREW MACKIE, Hickory Daily Record Staff Writer
Saturday, July 16, 2005
HICKORY -- While President Bush stumped for support of the Central America Free Trade Agreement on Friday in Gaston County, a staunch supporter was conspicuously missing.
U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, who grew up and lives in Cherryville, was in Lenoir speaking to laid-off Broyhill Furniture employees.
He declined an invitation to fly on Air Force One and be at the president’s side.
McHenry opposes CAFTA, saying it will do more harm than good for western North Carolina. It’s one of the few issues where McHenry disagrees with the president.
Thanks for the PING. I've read about this info elsewhere, and it appears to be accurate.
FYI
Read that again:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/osullivan/cst-edt-osul14.html
"These choices were very far from accidental. In those innocent days before 9/11, when geopolitics was passe and geo-economics all the rage, Bush entered office believing that his main foreign policy task would be to unite the western hemisphere economically and politically in a world of competing trade blocs.
Under U.S. leadership, the FTAA would gradually develop into an American version of the European Union resting on free trade, free capital movement and market-friendly capitalist reforms hroughout the Americas.
In return, the United States would pay what seemed a small price -- making immigration from Latin America much easier, legalizing the mainly Mexican "illegals" already here."
So I assume the selling out of our country by our govt. is almost complete?
Just what America DOESN'T need. Don't we already have about 20 million slave laborers here?
Wait until the CFR gets into the act! Will any American have a job? Who will pay the bills when the takers outnumber the givers?
The problem I have with an issue like this is: my reps in Congress will probably vote for it. Then what do I do? Vote for anybody who challenges them in the primary (and their chances of beating an incumbent are small)? Or just suck it up, because my reps are pretty good on most other issues? Or should I just pick absolutely the single most important issue to me and vote strictly based on that? I don't like the idea of being a single issue voter, but I feel like I'm getting cornered.
immigration ping
I think the American people are politicaly powerless to change anything. We have a govt. that no longer puts the country first. Where have the real American leaders gone? I see dark days ahead.
We must become more politically savy than we are right now.
It isn't a matter of the voting booth anymore, but actually going out and talking face to face with your representative.
Now that might not be possible while they are in session, and the CAFTA vote will happen before they leave, but take a group of people with you who agree, and go to the office of your representative and tell them all the things that make CAFTA an attack on our sovereignty. Leave a letter with them to be put in the public record of your view. Remind them that immigration is the key issue here and now, don't let them think you don't know what CAFTA will do to the number of people entering this country.
Tell your neighbors. Have an informational coffee in your home, or meet them at a local restaurant. Just sit down and talk to them. You'd be suprised at how little most Americans know about this. They will help by writing letters to Congress, to newspapers and visiting your representatives. Your Reps will respond to pressure, we just have to start pressing them.
Ping
We all know of the level headed, thinking people with common sense who see where we are going. Perhaps we should start openly supporting them and tell the world we are NOT for sale!
I second that!
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