Posted on 07/25/2005 4:03:34 PM PDT by Happy2BMe
Gutknecht hints he'll vote against CAFTA
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Rep. Gil Gutknecht, the last remaining undecided Minnesota lawmaker on the proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement, is hinting he'll vote against the deal when it comes up in the House later this week.
Gutknecht has declined recent interview requests on the vote, but in a weekly letter to constituents last Friday, he wrote, "If I were to vote on CAFTA today, I would vote no."
Gutknecht, a Republican from Rochester who generally supports free trade but often bucks his own party, said he agreed with critics that the deal needs to be fixed.
"Unfortunately, we can't amend it here in the House," he said on his radio show on Friday. "We have to either vote for it or it has to be defeated. Now if it's defeated, I think it can be fixed relatively quickly, on about three fronts."
Gutknecht said those fronts were immigration, sovereignty and farm policy.
In the constituent letter, Gutknecht said he was worried about language in the proposed deal that would allow international companies to take the United States to a trade tribunal over alleged "unnecessary barriers to trade in services."
"So, preventing a company from bringing in foreign workers could prompt a foreign company to file a trade dispute claim against the United States," he said.
"Another problem is that we are being forced to change our U.S. laws to comply with these free trade agreements," Gutknecht said, citing an export subsidy law Congress rescinded after it was ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization.
He also expressed concern that the deal would let in more sugar than called for in the farm bill. The Bush administration has agreed to offset those increases by either compensating exporting countries for not sending sugar here, or converting the excess sugar into ethanol. But the American sugar industry has remained opposed to the deal, noting the concessions apply only until the end of 2007, when the farm bill expires.
"I don't have a lot of sugar beet growers in my district, but those I do know are just regular folk," Gutknecht said. "They are not the big, bad sugar farmers they are being made out to be. Many have mortgaged their farms to invest in sugar refinery co-ops. They are scared to death that they will lose their farms because of CAFTA."
Gutknecht declined an interview request on Monday.
Phillip Hayes, a spokesman for the American Sugar Alliance, which is leading the effort to derail the deal, said he was happy about Gutknecht's statements.
"Representative Gutknecht recognizes the harm that CAFTA would cause the 46,000 sugar workers and farmers in the Red River Valley," he said. Minnesota is the nation's largest producer of sugar beets.
Officials with the U.S. Trade Representative's office, which is promoting the deal for the Bush administration, and the House Ways and Means Committee, which passed the deal in the House, declined to comment Monday on Gutknecht's statements.
CAFTA would bring six Latin American countries - El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic - into the open U.S. market that now includes Mexico and Canada.
The Senate approved the deal last month, with Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican, voting yes and Minnesota Sen. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, voting no. In the House, all four Democrats from Minnesota are opposed, while the three Republicans besides Gutknecht are in favor. The vote this week in the House is expected to be close.
You can keep posting this stuff, but repeating it doesn't make it true.
It will take CAFTA 20 years to remove all the tariffs. I wonder how much of tax payer money will go to the sugar WELFARE QUEENS of the CAFTA countries in 20 years?
OMG, it creates a COUNCIL!!!!!
Side deals????????????Tell me more about "free trade".
Some tariffs remain, but are phased out gradually, on our farm exports.
That's because our farm exports would crush them. In other words, our farmers will benefit, but it's not desirable to let them do so the point of disrupting those fragile democracies.
My feeling is that no welfare should go to welfare queen sugar farmers of any country, including our own.
Tell me more about farmers demanding welfare here in the US. That's what this is.
Explain the transfer payments, because you've been making this argument for months and I truly don't understand your reasons for doing so.
Spell it out and then we can talk about it.
The farmers here are not getting this money.
Should subsidizing other countries with US taxpayer money be a part of CAFTA? Did Bush say that he is doing this because of whinning US farmers or are you reading something into this?
Problem is, it is true. You can look up the GAO reports to see how much is being spent and see it with your own eyes, if you care to learn the truth.
I think you just want to make a buck and you don't care about this country or its citizens, or you would stand with us to defend our rights.
No it doesn't. That is just BS. It acts within the framework of the agreement, one that we can withdraw from with six months notice, btw. You never seem to mention that.
In globalese a "framework" is government regulation.
Bush can't buy off the Birchers or the commies, but he can buy off the sugar farmers.
""Sounds like a guy waiting until CAFTA has enough votes to pass then he will cast an empty no vote.""
Bingo...the real story here is CAFTA likely has the votes to pass
In your world, any agreement with another country is a surrender of sovereignty.
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has just let the cat out of the bag about what's really behind our trade agreements and security partnerships with the other North American countries. A 59-page CFR document spells out a five-year plan for the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common "outer security perimeter."
"Community" means integrating the United States with the corruption, socialism, poverty and population of Mexico and Canada. "Common perimeter" means wide-open U.S. borders between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. "Community" is sometimes called "space" but the CFR goal is clear: "a common economic space ... for all people in the region, a space in which trade, capital, and people flow freely." The CFR's "integrated" strategy calls for "a more open border for the movement of goods and people." The CFR document lays "the groundwork for the freer flow of people within North America." The "common security perimeter" will require us to "harmonize visa and asylum regulations" with Mexico and Canada, "harmonize entry screening," and "fully share data about the exit and entry of foreign nationals."
This CFR document, called "Building a North American Community," asserts that George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin "committed their governments" to this goal when they met at Bush's ranch and at Waco, Texas on March 23, 2005. The three adopted the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" and assigned "working groups" to fill in the details.
It was at this same meeting, grandly called the North American summit, that President Bush pinned the epithet "vigilantes" on the volunteers guarding our border in Arizona.
A follow-up meeting was held in Ottawa on June 27, where the U.S. representative, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, told a news conference that "we want to facilitate the flow of traffic across our borders." The White House issued a statement that the Ottawa report "represents an important first step in achieving the goals of the Security and Prosperity Partnership." The CFR document calls for creating a "North American preference" so that employers can recruit low-paid workers from anywhere in North America. No longer will illegal aliens have to be smuggled across the border; employers can openly recruit foreigners willing to work for a fraction of U.S. wages.
Just to make sure that bringing cheap labor from Mexico is an essential part of the plan, the CFR document calls for "a seamless North American market" and for "the extension of full labor mobility to Mexico."
The document's frequent references to "security" are just a cover for the real objectives. The document's "security cooperation" includes the registration of ballistics and explosives, while Canada specifically refused to cooperate with our Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).
To no one's surprise, the CFR plan calls for massive U.S. foreign aid to the other countries. The burden on the U.S. taxpayers will include so-called "multilateral development" from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, "long-term loans in pesos," and a North American Investment Fund to send U.S. private capital to Mexico.
The experience of the European Union and the World Trade Organization makes it clear that a common market requires a court system, so the CFR document calls for "a permanent tribunal for North American dispute resolution." Get ready for decisions from non-American judges who make up their rules ad hoc and probably hate the United States anyway.
The CFR document calls for allowing Mexican trucks "unlimited access" to the United States, including the hauling of local loads between U.S. cities. The CFR document calls for adopting a "tested once" principle for pharmaceuticals, by which a product tested in Mexico will automatically be considered to have met U.S. standards. The CFR document demands that we implement "the Social Security Totalization Agreement negotiated between the United States and Mexico." That's code language for putting illegal aliens into the U.S. Social Security system, which is bound to bankrupt the system. Here's another handout included in the plan. U.S. taxpayers are supposed to create a major fund to finance 60,000 Mexican students to study in U.S. colleges. To ensure that the U.S. government carries out this plan so that it is "achievable" within five years, the CFR calls for supervision by a North American Advisory Council of "eminent persons from outside government . . . along the lines of the Bilderberg" conferences.
The best known Americans who participated in the CFR Task Force that wrote this document are former Massachusetts Governor William Weld and Bill Clinton's immigration chief Doris Meissner. Another participant, American University Professor Robert Pastor, presented the CFR plan at a friendly hearing of Senator Richard Lugar's Foreign Relations Committee on June 9. ***************************************************
Just to refresh memories of what CAFTA will bring to America.
I expected more out of you than this post of name calling.
Pathetic!!!!
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