Posted on 07/18/2005 3:01:46 PM PDT by Osage Orange
Good reasons to reject CAFTA
By Bill Graves
Congress is debating the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), also known as son of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). America presumably benefits from "free" trade, and CAFTA allegedly will open up billions in trade between the United States and Central America. However, here's the other side of the story.
With CAFTA, as with its membership in NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, America will surrender more of its sovereignty as a nation and its states' rights to outside tribunals. For example, California's legislature passed a bill in 2004 to dispose of millions of scrap tires by recycling them into asphalt for road construction. When Mexican rubber producers claimed the bill violated NAFTA, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, citing NAFTA supremacy, vetoed the bill.
U.S. courts were overruled by a NAFTA tribunal in a dispute between Canadian and American firms. Afterward, a NAFTA tribunal judge said, "If Congress had known that there was anything like this in NAFTA, they never would have voted for it." He shouldn't be so sure. Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Warr Acres, who voted for NAFTA, believes that "U.S. sovereignty is less important than fostering interdependence and cooperation among nations with international bodies and tribunals."
Since NAFTA's passage, the U.S. trade surplus with Mexico was replaced by a trade deficit above $50 billion annually and a cumulative trade deficit exceeding $300 billion. The trade deficit with Canada and Mexico ballooned to 12 times its pre-NAFTA size. Moreover, 500,000 illegal immigrants annually make it across the border to take up American residence and enjoy the numerous social programs provided by overtaxed Americans. That will increase under CAFTA.
John Sweeney, AFL-CIO president, is firmly opposed to CAFTA because it is an extension of NAFTA. He said, "NAFTA has cost U.S. workers 900,000 jobs and job opportunities." Meanwhile, NAFTA didn't help Mexican workers as its supporters predicted, but Mexico's real wages fell and the number of poor increased.
Pat Buchanan said that with CAFTA, in return "for access to our market, we get access to six Central American markets with a total economy the size of" that of New Haven, Conn. Thus, about the only things the United States will be exporting to Central America are jobs, industry and capital as more factories seek to escape the U.S. tax and regulatory burden. In exchange, the United States will get even more illegal immigrants who are greatly attracted to the U.S. welfare state.
Despite all the talk about free trade, CAFTA's real purpose is not free trade. On May 31, President Bush said there is a "geopolitical, as well as economic, concern for CAFTA" in order to "support young democracies" in the region.
The columnist Charles Krauthammer said CAFTA gives America a chance to pull millions "out of poverty." Since when is it Congress' job to get non-Americans out of poverty? CAFTA, rather than being a "free trade" pact, is a disguised form of foreign aid.
Oklahomans should urge their congressmen to put not Central America's, but America's, economy first and reject the globaloney of CAFTA.
Graves is an Oklahoma City lawyer and former state representative.
CAFTA will hurt the Chinese and help us stop sending money to a direct enemy.
Have Wal-Mart build its plastic crap in El Salvadore, not under direction from the Red Army.
Free trade is still good. We can't act like the world ends at our borders. Good relations in this hemisphere are invaluable to us. I remember the '80s and that sucked.
What are the chances that there will be a SAFTA in the coming years?
"CAFTA will hurt the Chinese and help us stop sending money to a direct enemy."
Ah, yes, we're just totally helpless when it comes to sending jobs and investment capital offshore, so we need to create another, "friendlier" one, so we won't send jobs and investment to a hostile country.
CAFTA-DR - Making The World Safe For Walmart™
"We can't act like the world ends at our borders."
Says who? The voting public in the US?
The United States should not trade with communist nations.
This is certainly good news that we'll have unaccountable CAFTA tribunals telling us which US laws are good and which are bad.
I can't wait to enjoy the rule of unelected CAFTA bureaucrats designing and interpreting laws, regulations and rules. I always wanted to live under a soviet dictatorship that issues various edicts and demands.
Go ahead and fire Congress, since it's not needed.
Should I fly the communist or UN flag?
Kinda blend the two together....better yet..have a likeness of Bill Clinton in between the Sickle & Hammer....
Sorry you feel isolationism is the way to go. I figured most of you guys were completely discredited after pearl harbor. I'm a neoconservative and believe much more pragmatically than the classical conservatism that just wasn't correct in the contemporary world.
SAFTA would be awesome! an entire hemisphere of free trade. No other trading block could even come close to that... at least not at the present time.
"Sorry you feel isolationism is the way to go. I figured most of you guys were completely discredited after pearl harbor."
Oooh, dusted off that old saw... bringin' out the big guns, LOL.
And I'm sorry that you feel that the sovreignity of our nation should be thrown out the window in service to a little short-term profit. I'm also sorry that you're in favor of building up the industrial might of China, who respects no patent, no intellectual property, and is in no way constrained from nationalizing all the fine, new factories that have been built in Guangzhou and elsewhere over the past several years.
You ARE in favor of the predecessor treaty to CAFTA-DR, known as NAFTA, aren't you? Lacking any isolationist strain as you proclaim, I'm sure that WTO membership for China was right up your alley too.
You guys really have some nerve trotting this crap out so fast on the heels of what can only be termed an utter implosion of textile manufacturing in the US, and increasingly furniture. And now agriculture, too, with "Big Sugar" being placed on the sacrificial altar. Tobacco will be next.
What other domestic industries in the US do you deem too successful, and in need of hollowing out? And what gave you the right? It certainly was not the voting public. Was it some lovely little internationalist cabal, hmmm?
Didn't know I was talking to Pat Buchanon. Hey, we'll disagree on this one.
"... at least not at the present time."
Qualifying and equivocating already, on the 11th post. Yep, that raises MY trust level, LOL.
"Didn't know I was talking to Pat Buchanon."
And I didn't know I was talking to Kofi Annan.
How much of our Constitution do you want replaced because it is not in step with a "United NA"?
Do you want Mexicans and Canadians influencing our enjoyment, of our inalienable rights?
And now agriculture, too, with "Big Sugar" being placed on the sacrificial altar. Tobacco will be next.
Good riddance to "Big Sugar"...Big Sugar is the reason Life Savers are now made in Canada (along with an increasing number of candies and baked items)
Good riddance to "Big Sugar"
OK, just so long as we know where you're coming from; you want cheap candy, and don't care how many American citizens lose their jobs to keep you stocked up, fat and happy. One question, though: where do you suppose Life Savers will be produced, if CAFTA-DR is enacted? Has it ever dawned on you to question just why it is, that Life Savers, and the increasing number of candies and baked items that you mention, are now produced in Canada? Could it be NAFTA, or is it all just one-a them there weird coincidences?
Really? So, for all the lack of support the South Americans have given us in Iraq and the War on Terror we should reward them with this treaty?????
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