House will pass CAFTA tonight: DeLay

Reuters ^ | 07/27/05 | Reuters

[cotton1706]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the House of Representatives will approve a new free trade agreement with Central America late on Wednesday with the help of a few Democrats, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said.

"It will be a tough vote but we'll pass CAFTA tonight," DeLay told reporters after a meeting between President Bush and House Republicans. "We will honor our commitments to the south, we will protect our national security and will do it all with very few Democrats."

[Toddsterpatriot]

You sound like you do consulting work...join the club.

No. Worked for large securities clearing firms. Clients in the next room, down the street, across the country, around the world.

You are, however, providing a higher skill level service, locally and internationally... not the norm for average Americans providing services...far from it.

Probably.

Most lower skilled services are generated and provided locally at the clients work site....which is usually within a regional commute radius. ..although interstate trucking would be one exception.

Yes, and these services are less likely to compete with foreign providers.

If Americans are better educated and harder working...what do we want with foreign services anyways?

We'd be providing to them.

How do they compete with us..and how do they trade their local services globally...if not physically relocating to the client country?

Insurance, accounting, investment services are just a few examples that can all be provided from around the world.

I might compromise on services in trade...if the number of service positions on each side of the equation was balanced...equal numbers. For every service worker admitted to US from a CAFTA country...an equal number of service workers from America go down there.

See above.

[azhenfud]

"It's going to be good for America. We will sell more stuff. Our companies will be able to do business there in industries that were government monopolies until now. We will firmly bring into our sphere those countries that were previously hostile regions of communism and civil war."

Bravo Sierra.

People who MIGHT average an annual income equivalent to a week's pay for an American will hardly make any significant change in their consumption of product just because America agreed to a treaty. Any change of any significance will take decades. However, you can count on industry and manufacturing to immediately begin heading south, to Central America where labor, land, and resources are cheap - just as happened under NAFTA. But that's okay. I see where America is headed.

Those who rant that China is gaining on US wealth while others endorse such crap as CAFTA which directly undermines our manufacturing base have a legitimate concern. China WILL surpass the US in wealth if we don't awaken to what's happening. Not only does America export the manufacturing base, but in two decades - if we last that long - the skilled worker will be no more an available asset to America if ever that need again arises.

Yes sir - you can kiss a part of America "Bye Bye". Globalism, America surrenders her sovereignty to you - lock, stock, barrel, powder, and ball.

[Dat Mon]

In your scenarios as outlined...no problemo.

Bosch came into North Carolina some time ago....way before CAFTA even was thought of...Honda came into PA back in the seventies. We certainly don't need CAFTA to get foreign companies in here. Maybe we need a trade agreement like CAFTA to get our companies in there...why I don't know...it wasn't needed before in other countries.

Foreign companies in the US have always employed Americans...their products to be sold primarily HERE. Employment increased...and the local economies benefited. I would have preferred that American companies were there...but it was better than no jobs at all.

The reciprocal arrangement would work fine in Central America too...local workers hired there by American companies to make products or services for consumption THERE. That is what Ford and GM did in Europe for decades...again without CAFTA or its equivalent.

But this traditional definition of trade is not how things operate in this day and age...you know it...I know it. This is the age of offshoring of labor...and mass migrations of people into the US.

There should be more to this agreement than just the scenarios you describe...or else the guys who wrote this agreement padded it with thousands of pages of legalese which is superfluous.

I find the fact that it apparently DOESNT cover services definition in detail on the American consumption side...given the American publics unease on jobs to be incredible in itself...or perhaps a red flag. Thus my desire to SEE the language in question for myself...but this is not apparently a desirable thing to do. Hope some of our reps have seen it and understand it.

Some might like to pigeonhole me and others into some sort of fringe Luddite / socialist category...just for questioning this treaty...when nothing could be further from the truth. Hell....some democrats are lining up to support this treaty...so much for being a benchmark on conservative credentials.

What I cant understand is the animosity displayed towards people who oppose the treaty but only want the best for American interests. After all...these people are not MOVEON calling for the overthrow of the US.

BTW...our immigration RULES may not change by this agreement ...does the ENFORCEMENT of them also stay the same? How about limits on guest workers...stay the same also?

[Dat Mon]

YOU SAID..."Insurance, accounting, investment services are just a few examples that can all be provided from around the world."

I agree....those would be good candidate services for us to provide. Its a shame that there a lots of pages in the agreement limiting and setting conditions on the providing of such services...once again...the language of the agreement can prove me wrong.

The question remains...what are the services those countries provide to us....and what is their comparative advantage and mode of providing them to us?

Hell if all we do is sell sell sell our goods and services to them...I'm in favor of that....as long as we don't pay a nasty price down the road for the privilege of doing so.

Whats in this agreement for them?

[Toddsterpatriot]

The question remains...what are the services those countries provide to us....and what is their comparative advantage and mode of providing them to us?

I'm guessing they mostly sell us goods. Which at this point enter the US mostly tariff free at this point. I'm guessing we'll mostly sell them services. They're better at growing bananas and sugar, we're better at selling insurance, financial services and cell phone service.

Whats in this agreement for them?

They probably think signing this agreement will keep their goods coming here tariff free. This would make it more difficult for a Democratic President (God forbid) to hike tariffs on their exports in the future.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Dogma don't cut it guys....I wanna read it in black and white....so educate me.

Time and experience are the best teachers. CAFTA is gojng to pass whether any here like it or not. Therefore, let's just sit back and wait a few years and see who is right. Any who want to point fingers at others in 10 years are free to do so.

[cotton1706]

To all of the Social(ist) Conservatives out there:

You should read your history a little more. It was people like Wilson and FDR who loved lowering or eliminating tariffs while at the same time increasing income taxes and expanding government. Free trade and socialism are linked at the hip. We've had high income taxes, big government and free trade since FDR.

Yet before, Calvin Coolidge was a high tariff man and we had unprecedented prosperity, slashed taxes, reduced debt and smaller government.

Take your pick

[expat_panama]

expat_panama: "it lowers my import taxes," hedgetrimmer: "but I have to give up my sovereignty to get it."

Well, this tax cut has passed the house so we can give it a rest.   The latest is congress is working on making the other tax cuts permanent so now you'll have to make up reasons why anyone's a traitor who doesn't love say, the IRS.

[Dog Gone]

Maybe we need a trade agreement like CAFTA to get our companies in there...why I don't know...it wasn't needed before in other countries.

Many of these CAFTA countries had government monopolies in various sectors. The telephone company, for example. Now American companies can enter the cellphone business in that growing market and compete.

But CAFTA does not change anyone's immigration rules or the way they enforce them. So, if Cingular wants to build a cellphone network in Costa Rica, they can't send a bunch of Americans down to build it or run it because Costa Rica has strict rules about that. An American can open his own self-employed business there, but you can't go work for a company unless a showing is made that no Costa Rican citizen is able to do that job.

So Cingular, if it wishes to enter that market, will be hiring Costa Ricans to run it.

[hedgetrimmer]

now you'll have to make up reasons why anyone's a traitor who doesn't love say, the IRS.

I don't have to make up anything. You "Free traders" are the ones taking tax money to give away to your special interests in central America, not me.

[ConservativeTerrapin]

Yes, that statement was worded terribly, but you see where I was going...