Still hasn't come back since Clinton-Bush made China one of our favorite free-trading partners.
Posted on 01/20/2006 8:36:46 AM PST by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
President Bush went overseas recently to attend a meeting to promote FTAA, Free Trade Areas of the Americas. FTAA is a trade agreement to strengthen and extend NAFTA and parts of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to the entire Western Hemisphere, excepting Cuba. It will hand over control to corporate elites, threaten nations' abilities to govern democratically and the people's control over their own communities and land. It is being negotiated in secret. A massive protest occurred wherever President Bush appeared. Some, no doubt, hate the president and the U.S. in general. However, some are workers who have seen the pernicious effects from other trade agreements.
With the passage of CAFTA, President Bush's dream of a North/South American style European Union is two thirds complete. By a two-vote margin, CAFTA passed Congress in the midnight hours, after having the vote kept open for an additional fifteen minutes in order to round up aye votes. When a vote is that close, one can assume threats were made and goodies promised. Why was this particular vote so important to Bush? CAFTA, (Central America Free Trade Agreement), was the middle piece of what the Bush administration has repeatedly stated as one of its top priorities, that of a "free trade" highway for all of North and South America. FTAA, (Free Trade Area of the Americas), will complete the plan. The Bush White House has stated, "This negotiation (CAFTA) will complement the United States' goal of completing the Free Trade Areas of the Americas no later than January 2005 by increasing the momentum in the hemisphere toward lowering barriers…."
NAFTA has not lived up to its promises, nor will CAFTA. The ones getting benefits from these trade agreements are the multi-national companies who owe no allegiance to any country, but who use the U.S. government to push agreements that make it easier for them to move factories to the regions with the lowest paid workers. Evidently, Mexico isn't the lowest paid country; they need the option of going to Central America to get the best advantage possible.
NAFTA was promoted as being so beneficial to the Mexican worker that it would stem the tide of those coming across our border illegally. That, of course, was a miscalculation of immense proportions, as an estimated three to four thousand Mexicans come across that border every day. Opening up the borders of Canada, the U.S. and ALL of South America will afford the multi-nationals the great benefit of being able to hire the very lowest paid workers. In the U.S. alone there are currently approximately fourteen million workers who cannot find fulltime work. A race to the bottom of the wage scale is now being put into motion, so that these workers may soon have to accept the absolute lowest wages to be employed at all.
To sell CAFTA, it was said that our big companies would pay the workers in the Central American countries high enough wages that they would soon be buying all sorts of things from us, thus enriching our economy. However, the countries in question are among the poorest and smallest economies in the world. The only real buying power they will have will be through the IMF, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and other multilateral institutions. These are all funded largely by………the U.S. taxpayer. What a deal! We lose companies, jobs, and taxes paid by American taxpayers, who will be in competition with workers making maybe a dollar an hour.
NAFTA has shown that once we agree to a trade agreement, we also agree to a tribunal that will decide whether we are living up to the agreement. The results have been alarming to anyone who has been paying attention. The protections of the U.S. citizen, as contained in our Constitution, have been sublimated to unelected foreign judges, who are permitted to tell us that we are wrong, even if we are not. What we have seen in the United Nations is a distinct hostility to our interests; we should expect no better from the tribunals in question, who share those same hostilities toward our country. By "free trade" we subject ourselves to a leveling process. Since we have the most wealth and power, we will always be the ones who are brought DOWN to the levels of other countries. The brokers of these deals appear to be intelligent people, yet the U.S. always seems to come out on the short end of agreements. The huge trade deficit with China is a case in point.
The leftist regimes that are newly come to power in South America have declared their independence of anything American and say they will not cooperate with any agreement being made with other South American countries. They have put themselves firmly in Cuba's orbit. However, with the powerful influence created by the joining of all the other nations of the Americas, they may be made to suffer economically. We see China now acting to take advantage of the avowed isolation from the U.S. by the leftist countries. China is waiting in the wings to fill a void. By virtue of its huge trade imbalance with the U.S., China has become economically strong enough to rival a U.S. presence there. While we send our factories and other companies to China for cheap labor, China calls the shots and has bought the know-how of American companies which has been built up over years of research and development. China sends to us its cheap goods and floods the market with textiles, appliances and other goods. Our companies cannot compete with China's because their labor is paid so much less than ours. Trade laws do not allow us to use tariffs, which would make the playing field more even. China also manipulates its currency, thereby gaining a huge advantage in "free trade".
Since FTAA is being largely negotiated in secret, we may only learn of its laws after the fact. In a general way, though, we can know that FTAA will probably overturn laws protecting workers' rights or the environment if they interfere with corporate profits. FTAA would award broad new powers to corporations over local decision-making on schools, health care, municipal services, etc.
FTAA cannot be implemented without the assent of our lawmakers. They have assented to NAFTA and CAFTA. Because of the complexities of FTAA they may not have time to dissect it and understand its implications. The Bush administration has fallen behind in its timetable of implementing FTAA, in early 2005. Other pressing issues have consumed the president and the Congress and Senate. We can expect to see FTAA appear when the administration deems it to be a favorable climate for passage. Our representatives need to be told that obliterating our northern and southern borders to implement this agreement is not acceptable to their constituents, who will be watching their votes.
Barbara lives in a large city on the West Coast. What is important to her are: God, family, country, heritage, and borders. She enjoys music, poetry, painting and song writing.
ping
The Constitution clearly grants Congress alone the authority to regulate international trade. Neither Congress nor the President can give this authority away by treaty...every member of Congress who votes for CAFTA is voting to abdicate power to an international body in direct violation of the Constitution.
You're just a traitor! A low-life traitor to the American people and our Dear Leader! :)
"Take some BASIC Econ classes Willie."
You might want to bone up on Constitutional law, since you're suggesting a need for education, MNJohnnie. Chasing the absolute bottom-dollar labor cost does not supercede the Constitution, last I checked.
You knew Willie in the 1980's? I don't recall a FR then or the Internet for that matter.
Er, no we don't. Free Trade is what it is - conservative principles applied to trade, the principle of reducing taxation on trade just like we want to reduce taxation on wealth. If someone sets up a complex tarriff agreement which excludes some nations and includes others - and calls THAT "Free Trade" then it's hardly our fault. I want to knock down tarriffs for exactly the same reason that I want to knock down taxes. Are you in favour of tarriffs?
You shouldn't directly confront Johnnie with "irrelevant" facts like that.
He may become distraught and pursue that line of "debate" until you're sick of looking at his replies.
It makes it difficult to scroll through the thread to find more intelligent responses.
Still hasn't come back since Clinton-Bush made China one of our favorite free-trading partners.
LOL, good point. Actually the large Japanese investment in auto assembly plants in this country was a result of the tougher line taken with our trading "partners" in the 1980's, but there I go with facts again.
Thanks for posting. From my vantage point in industrial Ohio, I give free trade an "F."
Free trade bump
The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004:
One Internet source says, "The genisis of this law was to repeal the Extraterritorial Income Exclusion, which the World Trde Organzation insisted was in violation of the WTO trade agreement to which the US is a party. Retaliatory sanctions were in place in the form of excise taxes on USA exports to the European Union."
Here was a case where Congress had given tax breaks to U.S. corporations which earn money from exports -- but the WTO ruled that the tax breaks were subsidies.
Failure to repeal the "subsidies" would result in WTO-approved excise taxes on USA exports to the European Union. Other Internet sources say that, mean while, the Europeans continued to exempt their exports from VAT taxes on some of the stages of production -- clearly, in the minds of some, a subsidy.
How does this international meddling by the WTO, et al. meet your definition?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.