Free Republic

Official: Agreement would threaten U.S. immigration laws TWIN FALLS, Idaho -- If the Central American Free Trade Agreement- Dominican Republic gets a thumbs up from the House of Representatives this month it will likely serve as the next stepping stone to a Western Hemispheric free-trade zone similar to the European Union. The North American Free Trade Agreement, now 10 years old, got the ball rolling connecting Canada, the United States and Mexico under one free-trade umbrella. Should CAFTA-DR pass, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic will increase the scope of free trade to the northern...

Mr. OTTER. Mr. Speaker, I join the three previous speakers tonight, and I rise today in the urgent interest of America's sovereignty and the primacy of our laws and the Constitution. They are under attack, Mr. Speaker, by the Central American Free Trade Agreement that will soon be considered by this Chamber. In fact, even referring to CAFTA as a ``trade agreement'' is a misnomer. Yes, it involves trade; but its influence on our economy, our legal system, and our way of life would be much more serious and sweeping than the benign term ``trade agreement'' suggests. At its core,...

Welcome to www.SecureAmericasBorders.com . We built this website to gather the opinions of Americans who are concerned about the security of our borders and who believe our immigration policy should be reformed.   The Security and Immigration Survey focuses specifically on ideas and proposals to improve our border security and reform our immigration policy.   We hope you will complete the survey.   Thank you for your interest.

Tommy Thompson Gets Chip Implant Implanted microchips are getting a plug from a heavy hitter - former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. Thompson plans to promote a product made by his new company � a medical info chip � by having one implanted in his arm. "It doesn't cause any pain," Thompson told Paul Bedard, who writes the Washington Whispers column in U.S. News & World Report. The chip is made by Florida-based VeriChip, which recently added Thompson to its board of directors. The rice-size chip contains a 16-digit identification code that can be scanned at hospitals and...

Congress is likely to vote on whether to approve the Central American Free Trade Agreement before the end of the month. On Friday, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, called CAFTA the “big ticket” item on the House agenda next week, which is strongly backed by President Bush. Proponents argue CAFTA will promote trade and help some local businesses, especially farmers in West Virginia. Critics point to the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed by President Clinton in 1993, which eliminated many trade barriers with Mexico and Canada and ended up costing Americans more than a million jobs. “I just...

Puts & Calls / NO on Cafta, say Kevin L. Kearns and Alan Tonelson, who warn it exploits the weak Sunday, July 24, 2005 By Kevin L. Kearns and Alan Tonelson China's attempt to take over the U.S. oil company Unocal is a major test for Congress on Sino-American relations. Congress' answer so far -- harsh but toothless resolutions, hearing after hearing, and a tight focus on the narrow complaints of the rival Unocal bidder, Chevron -- deserves an "incomplete" at best. The state-owned Chinese oil firm CNOOC's heavily subsidized bid for Unocal should be blocked, both to limit the...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Proponents of so-called "free" trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which I opposed, have long promised endless riches for U.S. workers, farmers, businesses and economy. They've been wrong on all counts. Failed U.S. trade policies have led to the export of millions of high-paying American jobs; decline in U.S. living standards; soaring trade deficits; and a significant erosion of U.S. sovereignty to international trade bureaucrats. Despite this unbroken record of failure, the House is expected to vote before August on an agreement the Bush administration negotiated to...

Decades ago a woman whose in-laws were religiously conservative Mennonite people told me this funny story. The grandmother cooked noon dinner every day for her husband, their adult sons and all the farmhands. Since the farm was mostly worked by the muscle power of either men or horses, those hard-working men were monumental eaters. The grandmother roasted, boiled, whipped and baked walloping amounts of home-canned vegetables, mashed potatoes, big servings of meat, heavy desserts. My friend was very surprised the day she walked into the grandmother's traditional farm kitchen - and there was a brand-new microwave oven. (This was in...

In case you haven't the least idea what the heck it means for China to "float" its currency, let me put it in the language we economists use: China's float don't mean squat. Yet our President, a guy whose marks in Economics 101 are too embarrassing to publish here, ran out to hail the fact that buying Chinese money will now cost more dollars. The White House line to the media, swallowed whole, is that by making Chinese money (yuan) more expensive to buy with dollars, Americans will buy fewer computers and toys from China--and US employment will rise. This...

The Bush administration's free-trade agreement with Central America would cost taxpayers $50 million a year in loan forfeitures by sugar farmers, the Congressional Budget Office says. An administration official said Thursday that the analysis was unrealistic and that there would be virtually no cost under sugar provisions in the deal. The CBO released its estimate as House leaders planned for a vote next week on the Central America Free Trade Agreement. It would remove or lower trade barriers with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and he Dominican Republic. Overall, CAFTA would cost the U.S. about $4.4 billion over...

India is likely to open its market for quota-and duty-free access of LDC products before the coming WTO ministerial meet slated for December 13-18 in Hong Kong, in compliance of international trade rules, reports UNB. The Indian side gave the hint at the fifth WTO mini-ministerial meeting in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian, according to message received in Dhaka on Thursday. The three-day meeting concluded today (Thursday). Bangladesh at the July 12-14 Dalian round of talks strongly demanded of the developing and advanced developing counties to provide quota-and duty-free access of agriculture and non-agriculture products of the least developed...

Gov. Jeb Bush Wednesday morning welcomed trade representatives from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the United States as they gathered in Miami to negotiate the 11th round of the U.S.-Andean Free Trade Agreement. Nearly 1,000 delegates from throughout the Andean Region and the United States are to take part in the weeklong activities, expected to last through July 22. The Greater Miami Visitors and Conventions Bureau estimated the economic impact of the meeting at $1.5 million. The city has known it would host the event since it was chosen for the honor during the Miami Free Trade Area of the Americas...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - All of the estimated 10 million to 12 million illegal aliens in the United States would have to leave the country under an immigration bill introduced on Tuesday by two conservative Republican senators. The bill by Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl and Texas Sen. John Cornyn is a tougher alternative to a rival bipartisan bill introduced two month ago that would allow some illegals to get jobs legally and eventually gain citizenship without leaving the country. The Kyl-Cornyn bill calls for the creation of a machine-readable, tamper-proof Social Security card that would be issued to every American in...

TWIN FALLS, Idaho -- "CAFTA is NAFTA on steroids," said Kent Snyder, executive director of The Liberty Committee, a group whose motto is "Political Action From Principle." Affiliated with congressional representative Ron Paul, R-Texas -- who also opposes the Central American Free Trade Agreement-Dominican Republic -- the committee holds that CAFTA-DR, like the decade-old North American Free Trade Agreement isn't really about true free trade; it's about global managed trade. "Think about it," Snyder said. "Why does it take over 1,000 pages to define free trade?" In administrative works for several years CAFTA would create a NAFTA-like free trade zone...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The proposed trade pact is fatally flawed in its present form A current radio commercial urges Alabamians to oppose CAFTA "because CAFTA rhymes with NAFTA" and references the opposition to NAFTA of H. Ross Perot, the erstwhile presidential candidate who once claimed President George H.W. Bush was plotting to disrupt Perot's daughter's wedding. No, that ad doesn't give you much meat to chew on. Anyone who would oppose the Central American Free Trade Agreement (or CAFTA-DR, now that leaders in the Dominican Republic have come aboard) on the basis of that...

Congress will soon take up the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which many see as an extension of NAFTA and a precursor to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas that would convert all of North and South America into one integrated market. Opinions about CAFTA's impact on the regional economy vary widely among members of Congress based largely on what the agreement will do for their constituents. But in the rush to highlight who wins and who loses when these trade barriers come down, almost everyone has overlooked the troubling non-trade provisions that are tucked into the voluminous...

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has just let the cat out of the bag about what's really behind our trade agreements and security partnerships with the other North American countries. A 59-page CFR document spells out a five-year plan for the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common "outer security perimeter." "Community" means integrating the United States with the corruption, socialism, poverty and population of Mexico and Canada. "Common perimeter" means wide-open U.S. borders between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. "Community" is sometimes called "space" but the CFR goal is clear: "a...

CAFTA, the “Central American Free Trade Agreement” is being sold as a “free trade agreement” between the US and several nations in the Central American region. What is it and what does it matter to you? CAFTA is really not about “free trade.” “Free trade” is the bait. The hook, the catch, is regional government. Free trade is really unregulated, unimpeded trade. This is not what CAFTA is about. CAFTA will increase trade regulation between the US and Central America, not decrease it. Take a look at the hundreds of pages of regulations listed in the CAFTA charter. This is...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The outsourcing-happy folks who run The Wall Street Journal opinion pages have forgotten one of the pillars of opinion-journalism ethics: truth in advertising. The article they ran July 14 by Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO Henry M. Paulson, Jr., titled "CAFTA is the American Way," was simply the usual pro-treaty drivel with one critical exception. Paulson never mentioned, and the Journal never disclosed, that the Goldman Sachs chief is a de facto paid agent of the Chinese government. After all, Goldman is advising the Chinese government-owned and controlled China National Offshore...

U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA) today called on fellow House Members to closely examine the system of settling all trade and immigration disputes under CAFTA, as a violation of American legal principles and a kangaroo court system stacked against the United States. In the event that Central American governments' understanding of CAFTA immigration provisions are different than what the Bush Administration is now telling Congress, it would be an international tribunal set up under CAFTA and staffed by a panel of three "judges" that would settle the dispute. CAFTA rules under Article 20.9 dictate that the tribunal consists of two...