Posted on 07/27/2005 4:56:15 AM PDT by OESY
...Cafta opens the way for more U.S. products going south. The agreement also boosts intellectual property protection in Cafta countries, as well as competition in financial and other services in which the U.S. excels. American farmers alone expect to increase exports to Central America by some $1.5 billion a year. All that goes away if Cafta fails.
We are also told that Cafta can't work because the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994 didn't work....
Ross Perot's prediction of a "giant sucking sound" proved to be a fantasy.
But what about "the trade deficit"? Well, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) reported last week that, since the birth of Nafta, U.S. exports to Canada and Mexico have grown 55% faster than they have to the rest of the world, while imports from Mexico and Canada have only grown 20% faster. NAM says that Nafta partners make up just 10% of the U.S. trade deficit in manufactured goods....
The economic competition induced by Nafta pushed Mexico's political system forward toward fuller democracy, helping to end 70 years of one-party rule....
Protectionists are also trotting out another old reliable, the "sovereignty issue," claiming that U.S. regulatory powers will somehow be ceded to Cafta arbitration panels. But Nafta's panels have hardly obliterated Congress's powers, and Cafta's couldn't overrule any U.S. health or safety rules. All Cafta does is insist on "non-discriminatory policies," which means that U.S. laws and regulations must be transparent and can't be disguised trade barriers. If a Cafta country challenged a U.S. rule and won, the U.S. could refuse to change and the only Cafta recourse would be to deny comparable trade benefits to the U.S.
With so much to recommend Cafta, the shame is that the Bush Administration has had to hold a vote-buying bazaar to pass it....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Gooo CAFTA!!
And although 25% of my pig is covered in lipstick, it still looks like a pig.
U.S. will always have a trade deficit as long as the rest of the world is living in the third world.
What's your point?
I am presuming NAM is really MNAN (multi-national). I have watched manufacturing equipment being dismantled and it doesn't take a phd in economics to tell that wealth is being lost.
Mercantilism has been dying for 250 years. Free trade agreements can't be done fast enough.
Does this mean the US should be in a big hurry to join the third world? We seem to be headed in that direction.
The more the US economy declines, the quicker and easier to fold it into those nations that have forever been in decline.
"Does this mean the US should be in a big hurry to join the third world? We seem to be headed in that direction.
The more the US economy declines, the quicker and easier to fold it into those nations that have forever been in decline."
Apparently they don't teach capitalism and history any more in our schools.
It's absolutely hysterical that after NAFTA, our exports have soared to new records. Our economy is just heading towards the third world isn't it. That Ross Perot was right.. Oh wait a minute.. Nevermind.
The exports of cafta are equal to that of new jersey.
This is only an issue because the dems want to hand Bush a legistlative defeat. It is always about politics.
This is not a major trade deal.
If it were only that simple. The devil is in the details here, and there are way too many details.
California wanted to ban MTBE, but ran into NAFTA trouble with the Canadian maker. This is the same stupid 'disparate impact' nonsense we see in civil rights law. Since only Canada made MTBE, a ban would have disparate impact and so is not allowed without compensation. I think they wanted a billion or so.
California also wanted to turn old tires into asphalt, but ran into NAFTA trouble with a Mexican asphalt manufacturer who claimed restraint of trade.
This cr*p is well beyond 'free trade'. I'll bet the 2400 pages of CAFTA hides even more stupidity and treason than NAFTA.
This isn't free trade, it's reversed mercantilism. It's like having Great Britain fight an opium war against itself to force the importation of opium into London under the claim that it's 'Fair Trade with Afganistan'.
This is the main idea we're hearing now, "sure I can't find anything wrong with CAFTA but traitor stuff has got to be there somewhere!" Maybe CAFTA has little print and not enough pictures, but as far as gov't docs go I've seen worse. It's real easy to download (the final text here) and do a search for say "black helicopters" if you want. FWIW, it ain't in there.
One thing that really is in there is that it lowers my taxes.
So what? NAFTA allows more free trade than it did before and so will CAFTA. It would be great if they were simple one page documents, but as long as they get us going in the right direction, we have to take what we can get.
"Ross Perot's prediction of a "giant sucking sound" proved to be a fantasy."
Did it? Tell that to the thousands of textile, garment and furniture workers who lost their jobs. It was heart and gut wrenching to see these once proud people crating up machinery they worked with and sending it off to
Asia and Central America before they picked up their last paycheck.
Most have found other work...like at McDonalds.
If you don't make anything, you do not create wealth. Swapping dollars in a service economy is not creating wealth.
I'd prefer bi-lateral, free trade agreements that simply mutally abolished tariffs. NAFTA and presumably CAFTA are 2000 page monstrosities of managaged, not free trade. Are they improvements over the previous situation? I couldn't tell you.
I have a trade deficit with my grocery store. I buy more from them than the services I sell to the public. Is that bad?
Wasn't that the claim with NAFTA? What net gain did we get from NAFTA?
So what do we REALLY stand to gain from CAFTA, besides cheaper means for US companies to outsource more manufacturing?
When you buy from an American manufacturer, the jobs and ripple effect from those jobs results in tax revenue (local, state and federal). When you buy junk from Mexico and China, there is no tax revenue. Another way of looking at it is when you buy groceries at a deficit, the store is still part of your society and tax structure. If you bought your groceries from overseas you would lose your grocer and the people he employs, lose their spending power, lose their tax revenue. The new jobs that would be created (e.g. shipping) would not make up the difference. Your "savings" would likely be squandered on other imported crap.
Perot was absolutely correct. The GOP and the Democrats sold us a bill of goods with NAFTA...I hope CAFTA goes down big.
Folding America into the new world odor takes a little undoing of the old institutions..
Middle class has to be dismantled and the wide open borders
will provide the new color of America
One World (of unified confederate nation-states), One Race (more or less), One currency,One Military, One Religion, One Leader,...the dream of Utopia
Once all the naysayers and 'funnymentalists' are gotten rid of
Open Borders are basically- No Borders
No Borders basically means- No Sovereignty
Bye Bye Miss American Pie
CAFTA is the coup de gras
imo
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