GONNAFISTYA wrote:R00k wrote:Dek wrote:nafta and cafta have totally fucked up the US job scene as it is.. so stfu..
Let's all give Dekard a hand for a brilliant commentary on the subject! Bravo, sir!
Do you honestly think he'd offer anything besides "Rah! Rah! USA! USA! USA!"?
Don't even bother waiting.
Where did I say, Rah Rah USA USA!? You think because I disagree with NAFTA, CAFTA? It's pro-USA? The government wants it, I don't.. I'd call that an opinion you fat slob. :icon27:
Here's some facts:
General Facts About CAFTA – DR
10 years of NAFTA have shown just how devastating these agreements can be for working families and the environment. In the maquilladora zones along the US-Mexico border, wages are low, union organizing is suppressed, and industrial pollution has dramatically increased cases of hepatitis and birth defects among workers. NAFTA should be repealed, not expanded.15
• According to Kevin Gallagher, research associate at the Global Development and Environment Institute at the Tufts University “The U.S. Congress should also think twice before ratifying CAFTA. According to the U.S. government, CAFTA will only benefit the U.S. economy by one hundredth of one percent after it is fully implemented… A more recent study conducted by two researchers at Yale University examined the relationship between investment agreements and investment flows in the world economy… What they found was a negative relationship. The countries that had signed investment agreements with the U.S. government received less investment. The best way for CAFTA to help the U.S. economy is to ensure that Central American countries develop their economies so they can import more U.S. products in the future. Without the type of investment that boosts the growth of the domestic market, that development won’t occur.”
• The U.S. proponents of CAFTA-DR have focused on the benefits that America will experience economically with open trade with these countries. History however makes it clear that CAFTA-DR will only further the trade deficit that the U.S. has experienced since 1997 due to trade with these countries—NAFTA increased the deficit and so will CAFTA-DR!
• Turnaround exports to the Central American countries during the period of 1997 to 2004 rose nearly 60%; that’s much lower than the 234% increase in the U.S. global trade deficit.17 Despite all of the accolades of CAFTA-DR, the evidence is not there to substantiate proponents’ claims of economic benefit.
• Central American domestic industries are in cahoots with foreign industry and are just as adamant about getting CAFTA-DR passed as is the Bush administration and the corporate interests here in the U.S. Central American governments are pushing three issues for support of CAFTA-DR, claiming that the agreement will not provide charity, rather it will provide opportunity to the Central American countries and its citizens:
1. CAFTA-DR will bring more jobs to Central American countries, which suffers from high unemployment rates.
2. CAFTA-DR will ensure competition which will result in increased efficiency and productivity.
3. CAFTA-DR will ensure that goods and services will be cheaper.18
The truth behind claims that CAFTA-DR will increase export revenues for Central American countries is that it will probably only increase exports from enterprises that specialize in low wage labor (i.e., maquilladoras). Local small agricultural enterprises are very concerned because CAFTA-DR will more than likely result in their destruction, due to the competition with foreign agribusiness that is better funded through subsidies.19
• CAFTA-DR proponents talk of increased foreign investment in Central American countries if the agreement is accepted, but experience with NAFTA proves that the increased economic efficiency of a country does not illicit increased capital flows to the countries. Rather the only real source of capital flowing into the countries out of foreign markets are the monies sent home by those who have migrated out of their communities looking for the promised jobs.
•Passing of CAFTA-DR will lead to the expansion of the stalled free trade agreement throughout all of Latin America and the Caribbean countries (excluding Cuba) called the Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA. Currently, Venezuela, Brazil and other South American and Caribbean countries have stood in strong opposition to the FTAA and have succeed in disrupting recent FTAA talks20
• The CAFTA-DR is being pushed through in the region through cooercion! In response to a senior trade official’s statement (as reported by La Nacion on March 18, 2005) who claimed, “Allow me to be absolutely clear on this point: in order to benefit from duty-free access to the U.S., the countries of Central America and the Dominican Republic will have to ratify CAFTA,” Representative Rangel, a leading House Democrat said, “It seems to me that if this trade agreement is as good for the region as the Administration claims, why has the Bush Administration resorted to threats to get other countries to accept it? If the Administration persists in trying to build a so-called coalition of the willing through threats then it diminishes further America's standing in the world.21
• Central American countries are not equally represented in CAFTA-DR negotiations: the combined GDP of the Central American countries is only 0.5% of the entire U.S. GDP and requires that market liberalization of the majority of sectors be guaranteed.22 The U.S. has tried to sweeten the deal for the obviously uneven trade agreement by guaranteeing that certain Central American sectors will be given increased market access (with regard to international trade, market access indicates the conditions under which a good or service can compete with locally-made goods; for the WTO, market access indicates that imports not be subject to discriminatory conditions) such as textiles and sugar. The Washington Office on Latin America says of the obvious discrepancies in the deal, “Analysts expect that--as occurred in Mexico--CAFTA will attract foreign direct investment and boost Central American exports in certain sectors, but will provide little benefit to the rural and urban poor of the region.” 23
