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change our U.S. laws to comply with these free trade agreements," Gutknecht said, citing an export subsidy law Congress rescinded after it was ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization.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.
Did you know that we don't impose tariffs on CAFTA countries, but they do on us?
This agreement will eliminate that.
Yet somehow this turns over Washington DC to some council in Guatemala. Lunatic fringe stuff.
Thanks for the article. It is an eye opener.
For some reason CFR reminds me of another CFR (Campaign finance reform). I remember when everyone of this forum thought that Bush was against campaign finance reform. Not until they had it shoved into their faces did they admit that they had "read" him wrong. Then it was tooooooo late.
For some reason I don't see John Birchers and commies together. So prove your fact. Don't just name call, document it.
I'm afraid that it is toooooo late to stop the CFR and it's treasonous ideas. That is the reason for the massive influx of illegal Mexicans, championed by Bush. He and the CFR are walking hand in hand on this one.
The Carl Levin wing of the Rat party thinks this will be bad for Central America because it doesn't provide enough environmental protections for them, doesn't raise their salaries to our minimum wage level, and basically doesn't turn them into an American welfare state.
The Birchers hate any international agreement whatsoever.
The sugar farmers hate that it might hit their pocketbook that Americans pay twice the going rate for sugar than anyplace else in the world.
I agree with you that it probably is too late. It is not only CFR, it is also the OAS.
Go to
http://www.ftaa-alca.org Click on FTAA and then on the second page in the left hand column click A-Z list. Go down the page to the Santiago summit then click on the latest summit which is Neuvo Leon. This will explain why the illegals are allowed and the remittances will never stop. Down towards the bottom of the page they even discuss social security.
Notice, Dog Gone, that this is NOT from a John Bircher page nor a commie page. This is on the official FTAA website.
I think you may be right. Here's a recent article that is encouraging (ignore rat MSM title).
Opponents still see chance to block Bush on CAFTA
I never thought Bush would send it to congress unless he thought he had the votes. I also saw where Roy Blunt, House Majority Whip, said they had the votes. With so much Bush hatred coming from the left and, apparently, some from the right, it will be very close. I think it all comes down to whether or not he is successful in buying off the whores in the sugar cartel.
No, here's pathetic. Commies from A-Z lined up against freedom to trade.
One-worlder global socialists and other assorted commies against CAFTA
So much for name calling.
Yes, its the One world order Fascists who are for CAFTA.
"Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State."
Sound familiar to you, isolationist?
Thanks for the link. So are you saying Eagle Forum of California is communist? I took that link and went to the national Eagle Forum and read Phyllis Shafly's article against Cafta. I didn't realize you thought of her as a communist.
By the way, everyone needs to read Phyllis Shafly's article.
Did you post that as a thread somewhere (I hope)?
Sorry for the spelling error in my previous post. Phyllis Schlafly is the correct spelling.
http://www.eagleforum.org
She has a good article against CAFTA in the June Phyllis Schlafly report down in the middle of the page.
Uh no, what was stated is that the people who are against CAFTA are commies(democrats), bircher types(extreme right wing), and the sugar growers.
I really don't like calling anyone a commie. Do you? Is this necessary in a discussion on CAFTA?
CAFTA and Foreign Investment –
A Public/Private Sector Partnership
CLAA Trade & Investment Forum
July 22 & 23, 2003 -- Guatemala
Public-private partnerships are accepted by communists in the New Russia and are referred to as "state capitalism"--Charlotte Iserbyt
"Modern fascism should be properly called corporatism, since it is the merger of state, military and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
FYI congressional testimony on CAFTA
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, tonight I wish to suggest eight more reasons to vote ``no'' on CAFTA .
First of all, CAFTA continues the failed neo-liberal trade regimen that puts freedom last rather than first. CAFTA assumes, like NAFTA before it, that trade will bring freedom. But where contingent liberties do not really exist, such flawed trade approaches bring not freedom but exploitation and hardship on the majority of the people struggling to get into the middle class.
A ``no'' vote on CAFTA will result in its renegotiation to expand liberty, opportunity, and hope. Respect and dignity for workers, fresh water, clean air, treated sewage are rights that should belong to every human being. Surely our continent, our hemisphere deserves better than CAFTA .
Another reason to vote ``no'' on CAFTA is that it will outsource more U.S. jobs and worsen our burgeoning trade deficit. NAFTA's supporters promised us millions of jobs, as the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) has stated, as well as a trade surplus for our country. Exactly the opposite has happened.
The U.S. has lost over 1 million jobs to Mexico and Canada resulting from NAFTA, and each year we have fallen into deeper and deeper trade deficit with those nations.
Another reason to vote ``no'' on CAFTA is it will fuel more illegal immigration. Just like NAFTA, millions of people will be uprooted from the rural countryside with no hope, no continental labor rights, and become an exploitable class of people used by the most unscrupulous traffickers on the continent.
Another reason to vote ``no'' on CAFTA is that Central American workers will continue to be subjected to sweatshop conditions because the enforcement provisions that exist in the Caribbean Basin Initiative, CBI, will not apply. Right now CAFTA countries are not robust democracies. But what the CBI does in the Caribbean is assures that trade rights are linked to access to the U.S. market and enforcement of labor provisions.
CAFTA backslides on this lock-tight trigger. It basically has some encouraging language to nations to enforce their labor laws which may be poor or non-existent, and no matter how weak, gives them a go-ahead and then sets aside money in the agreement to give to the very governments that are not enforcing those laws anyway.
Another reason to vote ``no'' on CAFTA is it hurts U.S. agriculture. In fact, CAFTA nations already are saturated with U.S. agricultural products which consume about 94 percent of their market, so there is not much room to grow there. And, more importantly, CAFTA provides that Brazilian ethanol and other imports, if processed inside of these Central American countries, and 35 percent of the processing occurs there, can be back-doored into the United States. So it will be the same kind of back-dooring into the United States of products from these other countries that has happened with NAFTA, Mexico and Canada.
Another reason to vote ``no'' on CAFTA is it will regress democratic reform in CAFTA countries. CAFTA does nothing to advance democracy in the six nations that are a part of it. In fact, the civil societies in those countries are broadly opposed to CAFTA . Huge demonstrations against CAFTA have occurred in every one of those nations, and the manner in which this is being voted on in those countries is truly troublesome. Three countries have used emergency procedures, bringing up late at night, the public does not know what is happening. And in the other three countries it has not even been voted on. Not exactly a way to carry forward the idea of democratic liberties across the hemisphere.
Another reason to vote ``no'' on CAFTA is its lack of real environmental enforcement and our knowledge that with NAFTA drug trafficking has snubbed up right against the U.S. border at Juarez. When you have these trade agreements that do not have other contingent policies attached to them, what you end up doing is empowering some of the worst forces in the hemisphere.
Finally, CAFTA will hurt women workers disproportionately in societies where women's rights are already marginalized. How would you like to be a woman in a textile plant in one of those countries? Or how about in a banana-packing shed? What do you think your future would look like? Sixty percent of those working in these sweatshop conditions are women workers with absolutely no labor protections. CAFTA is doing nothing to improve their standing in our hemisphere, and it will do nothing to obliterate the sweatshops that are so very much a part of their lives.
The combined purchasing powers of all of these Central American countries is the same as Columbus, Ohio or New Haven, Connecticut. They really do not have the kind wherewithal to purchase value-added products from our country.
So what is CAFTA really about? CAFTA is merely about expanding the NAFTA model to six other countries, providing more export platforms to the United States of goods, both agricultural and manufactured are back-doored into this country, and providing none of the advances in freedom, liberty, opportunity and hope that should be the hallmark of this country at home and abroad.
Let us look at some specifics. Under CAFTA , a tribunal empowered to resolve a dispute would be made up of judges from three countries; two countries, one each, representing those in the dispute, as well as a judge from a third country from the CAFTA trade agreement. Now, no matter how you do the math, it adds up to one voice for the United States against two judges from Central American countries without the tradition of constitutional jurisprudence or democracy of which we are justifiably proud. Those odds simply are unacceptable.
--Rep. Butch Otter, Idaho
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