Posted on 07/29/2005 6:48:42 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
Government and business leaders in Guatemala applauded the U.S. House of Representatives for its approval of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) early Thursday, saying it will bring more jobs and foreign investment to the region. However, environmental and farmer organizations say the treaty will cause greater unemployment and more migration to the U.S.
CAFTA will remove most tariffs from goods traded between the U.S., five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. It is expected to take force as early as January 1, 2006.
The news brought mixed reactions in Guatemala, one of the six countries included in the trade pact with the United States.
Guatemalan congressman Mariano Rayo called the House's approval of CAFTA a victory for the country.
Mr. Rayo said CAFTA opens up great opportunities for employment and investment in Guatemala.
But he warns Guatemala must prepare itself to compete for this investment with other CAFTA countries.
The Guatemalan congress has committed to passing a series of laws designed to mitigate the treaty's negative effects on some sectors.
However, CAFTA opponents say these laws aren't enough. Miguel Angel Sandoval, of the anti-CAFTA group, Mesa Global, called the treaty a disaster for Central America.
It was a poorly negotiated treaty, says Mr. Sandoval, that doesn't represent the region's needs.
He called on the government to increase spending for development and assist small farmers in order to avoid a social and political crisis in Guatemala when CAFTA takes effect.
How many times have you heard "free traders" say that "free trade" has no effect on illegal immigration?
CAFTA PING. If you want on or off the list, let me know.
Hey, Guatemalan teachers. Money follows value.
I'm sure it was just a temporary error.
In a Constitutional representative Republic, such as ours, the enactment of law and the execution of diplomatic and foreign policy is exercised by the executive and the legislative branches of government via Congress, the Senate, and the Presidency and their agencies.
It's scenes like that which explain why American companies are not chomping at the bit in an effort to move US jobs to Guatamala. Not only is there labor unrest, but there is a serious security issue. I don't think this treaty is going to change much.
When people can't sustain an argument they usually resort to repetition. If someone keeps insisting something that's not true all that's left for an honest individual is to defend the truth against the monotonous chorus of ignorance and lies.
NAFTA has proved to be a disaster for our country. CAFTA may prove to be deadly.--upchuck
That quote is just one example of what I'm talking about. No kneejerk anti-Free Trade Keynsians, socialists, or isolationists have been able to maintain an argument to support such utterly foolish statements.
As I've had to point out and demonstrate, repeatedly, NAFTA demonstrates how American free enterprise economics works. As Prof. Joseph Salerno has explianed:
"Capital flowing out of a nation, to other areas where its more productive, to the third world countries, enormously develops the productivity of labor in [those countries] and increases the market for our goods while raising wages and profits in the export industry... Free-market economics gets resources going into their most value productive employments."
That's the way it works in the United States.
Re-posting here: People should be promoting the American model, especially when the politically insane libs think that America needs to be more like the rest of the world. I can't believe how some of you on Free Republic bought the nonsense that NAFTA was bad for our country or for the other two involved, especially after all the proof to the contrary:
"Each one of the three [NAFTA] signatory countries -- Mexico, Canada, and the United States -- has 'grown considerably faster' than during the previous decade..." - Grant Aldonas, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade. In the period of 1999-2003 All NAFTA member economies have grown significantly: U.S., 38%; Canada, 30.9%; Mexico, 30% growth.
Other highlights:
U.S. exports to Canada and Mexico grew. Canada's exports to its NAFTA partners increased by 104% in value. Mexican exports increased by almost 227%. Representing a free trade area with about one-third of the worlds total GDP, the NAFTA economies are significantly larger than that of the European Union. Even with the addition of ten new members, the EU's GDP will still be well behind that of the NAFTA region.(Source: Office of the U.S. Trade Representative)
The dismantling of free trade barriers and opening of markets have led to economic growth and rising prosperity in the US, Mexico and Canada. The total volume of trade among the three NAFTA partners expanded from 389.3 billion in 1993 to $623.1 billion in 2003.
In the ten years since NAFTA, productivity rose 28% in the US from 1993-2003, in Mexico up 55% and in Canada up 23%.
In the first decade of NAFTA, US manufacturing output soared, U.S. employment grew, and U.S. manufacturing wages increased dramatically. Income gains and tax cuts from NAFTA were worth up to $930 each year for the average US household of four.
In Mexico, wages in export-related industries are 37% higher than the rest of it's economy. Mexican wages and employment tend to be higher in states with higher foreign investment and trade, and migration from those states is lower. Wages are also higher in sectors with more exposure to imports and exports.
Two-way agricultural trade between the US and Mexico increased more than 125% since NAFTA went into effect, reaching $14 billion in 2003 compared with $6.2 billion in 1993.
Merchandise exports to the US from Canada expanded by 250% since 1989 and account for 87.2% of Canada's total merchandise exports.
Through the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which was created from NAFTA, all three countries have beneffited from coordination which is increasing in the effectiveness of conservation efforts by developing the North American Conservation Action Plans for three shared marine species, providing tools such as a map of terrestrial ecoregions which management agencies are using in their programs.. NAFTA partners have undertaken a wide-range of cooperative programs and technical exchanges on industrial relations.
It's a classic win-win situation. We have the opportunity here to open new markets for our workers, for our farmers, for our service providers, while, at the same time, leveling the playing field with a region that already enjoys mostly duty-free access to the United States. At the same time, we can help lift people out of poverty in Central America and the Dominican Republic, and we can help solidify those fragile democracies and staunch allies.~President George W. Bush
Leviticus 5:10- "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof"
Proverbs 4:5- "Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or swerve from them"
This is what Ludwig von Mises, a classical liberal, said in 1927:
"The program of antiliberalism unleashed the forces that gave rise to the great World War and, by virtue of import and export quotas, tariffs, migration barriers, and similar measures, has brought the nations of the world to the point of mutual isolation. Within each nation it has led to socialist experiments whose result has been a reduction in the productivity of labor and a concomitant increase in want and misery. Whoever does not deliberately close his eyes to the facts must recognize everywhere the signs of an approaching catastrophe in world economy. Antiliberalism is heading toward a general collapse of civilization."
It is crucial to keep in mind when these things were being said. The classical understanding of liberalism involved free market economics. Where the traditional and historical liberal sought goals laid out for them by what they freely accepted as authoritative institutions, the distorted liberal percieved the extinction of freedom; this perversion has led to the conceptual mayhem that our society suffers from, and is threatened by today.
This is what John Maynard Keynes, a "liberal" said about the Soviet UNI0N in 1936 (remember Stalin is in power now):
"the new system is now sufficiently crystalised to be reviewed. The result is impressive. The Russian innovators have passed, not only from the revolutionary stage, but also from the doctrinaire stage."
In other words he praised anti-capitalist totalitarianism. It ended up killing up to 100 million people. Guess which economist the establishment academia and the media was behind. So why haven't people still learned from these immense errors?
Wow! Quite an assignment - to drag the whole Third World into civilization kicking and screaming. We've got enough on our plate already, and we're getting acid reflex from trying to digest what we've already got.
Wow! Quite an assignment - to drag the whole Third World into civilization kicking and screaming. We've got enough on our plate already, and we're getting acid reflex from trying to digest what we've already got.
The globalist agenda...swamp the USA till she sinks
CAFTA will create more illegal immigration, just as NAFTA did.
Republicans know that if you could not trade you would have to make all the goods and services you consume by yourself.Every single nail in the couffin of Marxism/economic (or any other) ignorance will be good for Guatemala or any other part of the world.
We have had growing free trade, despite Democratic insanity, for 200 years. Unemployment is now at 4.9%, a 30 year low. Homeownership is at an all time peak, average home size is bigger than ever, $3000 TV sets are now common...
Of course the politically insane lefties oppose that.
When will people learn that the same ideologies that produced Hitler's National Socialist German Workers Party, Mussolini's anti-capitalist Blackshirts, Stalin's Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Kim Jong Il's Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and the takeover of Mao that gave the world a Red mainland China, and others, are precisely the last people in the world to be listening to when it comes to when it comes to avoiding social and political crisis? I visited this leftwing StopCafta site, and it was very creepy to watch them emphasize thousands of job-losses (through comptetition) while ignoring millions more employed as a result of NAFTA.
I don't know about the Mesa Global group, but if they oppose economic reforms more than they actually help to bring them about, then I see no use in citing them.
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