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.
But think of the benefits! A bike path and hiking trail practically from pole to pole, with rest stops and canteens all along the way! Wowzie!!!
/sarc
Thanks for the ping, hedge. I will let my congressperson know to look carefully at that language.
Are you trying to say it would be a bad thing to wake up one morning and find two hundred million third world illiterate invaders crowding our streets?
"- This appears to be the reason our immigration laws are not being enforced."
I also came to that conclusion several weeks ago. It was a real rude awakening for me when I realized what was going on.
Why isn't it on the front in the bold print so the Congressmen voting for the bill will see it?
If I am not mistaken, our immigration laws are being enforced, or at least an attempt is being made, for OTM (other than Mexican) at the moment.
They ARE NOT being enforced for Mexican ILLEGAL CRIMINAL INVADERS because NAFTA gave the Mexicans and Canadians the legal right to invade.
This also explains why there was no outrage when el Presidente Fox, had a booklet printed with explicit directions on how to invade the US, condemned the US for not allowing the ILLEGALS to vote, challenged Arizona on the passage of a law to restrict freebies to ILLEGALS in the world court ... it is all part of NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA.
These lead to a couple of other "trade treaties" and voila ... no sovereignly, no country, just international rule and law under the UN. It is called ONE WORLD ORDER.
Check out post #27, just in case there's any doubt about what CAFTA will cost us in terms of border security...
I read my printout from the CFR yesterday re "THE NORTH AMERICAN THINGY"! 21 pages. We think CAFTA is bad, everyone should go to the CFR site and read this thing!
What the CFR has planned for America is a nightmare. We will no longer be a sovereign nation if they get their way.
We all need to write our Senators and Representatives and ask them straight out what their opinion of the CFR's plan is. That way we'll know where their loyalties are and vote accordingly in the next election.
Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!
Be Ever Vigilant!
Minutemen Patriots ~ Bump!
And they know it, so they try to use weasel words at times to sort of backtrack.
Gov Weld was one of the participants in the part I read.
A spot on illustration of the issue.
>"It was a real rude awakening for me when I realized what was going on."<
-Likewise, for me.
good point -Mexico and Canada get a free pass
You must be just one of the sheeple.
As I understand it, our Reps rarely know what is in these things. I wonder if they did not listen due to pure ignorance, or willful disrespect for you, our country and our sovereignty.
As someone up thread has said, it is time for "We the people" to take our country back.
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