Thread: Activist-Led Rebellion Threatens To Defeat CAFTA

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.p ... 7102536719

Friday, May 27 2005 @ 03:05 PM PDT

Activist-led Rebellion Threatens to Defeat CAFTA
Friday, May 27 2005 @ 10:25 AM PDT

With the left-leaning governments of South America having derailed the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), the Bush Administration had pinned its free trade hopes on bullying the smallest countries in the hemisphere. A year ago this weekend -- on May 28, 2004 -- the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was signed, and forwarded to Congress for what was expected to be rapid approval.

Good News for a Change

Activist-led Rebellion Threatens to Defeat the Central America Free Trade Agreement

by Geov Parrish

May 27, 2005 | Working For Change

With the left-leaning governments of South America having derailed the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), the Bush Administration had pinned its free trade hopes on bullying the smallest countries in the hemisphere. A year ago this weekend -- on May 28, 2004 -- the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was signed, and forwarded to Congress for what was expected to be rapid approval.

And there it still sits. Activists have convinced a coalition of Democrats and conservative Republicans to come out in opposition to CAFTA. This month, the New Democrats -- a moderate Congressional caucus that is historically pro-free trade -- announced its opposition, calling CAFTA "flawed" for its lack of an economic development package. Conservative Southern Republicans, seeking to protect the sugar and textile industries in their home states, are opposed. And the original Democratic bloc opposed to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is back for another round.

NAFTA figures large in the debate on CSFTA. In many ways, CAFTA is the most direct referendum Congress has had the chance to engage in on the results of NAFTA, the agreement between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico forged by Bill Clinton in 1993. NAFTA has contributed to the enormous loss in manufacturing jobs in the last decade in the United States, with many of them fleeing for the cheaper labor markets of Mexico. Meanwhile, Mexican agriculture has been decimated by the dumping of cheap North American grain. NAFTA has been a disaster for poor and working class people in all three signatory countries, and Democrats fear that the impact of the even cheaper labor of CAFTA's signatory countries in Central America and the Caribbean would be even worse.

CAFTA has other unappealing provisions. One of these gives five years of protection for pharmaceutical test data, a move that effectively delays the use of life-saving new generic drugs in Central America, directly undermining the TRIPS agreement of the World Trade Organization. Like NAFTA, CAFTA also reserves the right to override worker safety and environmental provisions.

These are some of the reasons why the opposition to CAFTA has been unexpectedly broad. In addition to the AFL-CIO, new labor groups not active in the NAFTA fight, like the Carpenters' Union, are on board this time. Public Citizen and a variety of environmental groups have helped lead the charge. Health care groups are in the mix, as are industries trying to fend off foreign competition. Planned Parenthood has come out in public opposition and worked against the pact. Religious groups from Central America have been visiting the U.S. to lobby against CAFTA and the effect it would have on the region's poor people. Congresspeople have heard from their constituents, loud and clear. "They've been hammered by their own constituents," says Jeremy Simer of the fair trade group Community Alliance for Global Justice. "Everywhere they went, we were there."

The end result is the potential for a rare victory for progressives in a Republican-dominated Congress. The battle is not over, of course; the Bush Administration is still pushing hard for CAFTA's approval. But in a time when Democrats are frequently desperate for moderate Republicans with whom they can make alliances, the opponents of CAFTA offer the prospect of a new, jobs-based bipartisan alliance that transcends ideology.

The potential defeat of CAFTA may represent a final blow, after the collapse of WTO expansion talks and the FTAA, to the Bush Administration's efforts to negotiate sweeping multi-national free trade agreements. Already, the administration has shifted its focus to bilateral agreements -- most recently with Singapore, Jordan, and Chile -- in which the U.S. can more easily dictate the terms of the agreements. Such agreements have sailed through Congress, usually in less than 60 days, an expedited process provided for by the 2002 approval of fast track.

But Congress -- as well as the global South -- is clearly becoming more skeptical of the multilateral agreements. For this we may thank the fair trade movement, which had its coming out party at Seattle's WTO meetings in 1999. In the five-plus years since, activists have worked to promote fair trade, oppose the corporate agenda of the free trade treaties, and educate the public. With CAFTA in trouble, their work is paying off.

Geov Parrish is a Seattle-based columnist and reporter for Seattle Weekly, In These Times and Eat the State! He writes the daily Straight Shot for WorkingForChange.

© 2005 Working Assets

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Well, at least those "UN Loving -- open border morons" are finally being put to good use! It's the ONLY good thing they've ever "almost" accomplished in 3 decades.

NAFTA, the agreement between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico forged by Bill Clinton in 1993

NOTE: Bush #1 FORGED NAFTA.......not Clinton. He just rode that pony home.

Well, I will still be working to stop CAFTA. Lets hope this news is real.

JP!

Well, I will still be working to stop CAFTA. Lets hope this news is real.

OF COURSE! This baby is by no means DEAD yet. I only meant that the above groups are helping in the fight and finally contributing to something worthwhile after 30+ years. NOT that the fight was over. I promise you that they'll try to sneak it in either in the dead of night or under another "cover."