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Two sides of CAFTA divide eyed


Rep. Gregory Meeks says he has no regrets.
Although the Queens Democrat, who represents District 6, and Edolphus Towns, an African-American congressman from Brooklyn, are blamed with delivering a razor-thin, two-vote victory on the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) initiative to the Bush administration last month, Meeks insists he is not sorry.

"I have to do what is best for my district and for New York; I have to vote my conscience," he told the Daily News on Monday.

When Meeks and Towns became part of the CAFTA 15, as the Democrats who crossed party lines and voted for the agreement have been pejoratively dubbed, the New York labor movement, which supported them in the past, felt betrayed. Both men have pro-labor voting histories ("My voting record is 92% with labor," Meeks said), and no one expected them to defect.

"Not a single one of those cowardly 15 should receive a dime more of labor money," claims Working Life, a daily blog dedicated to labor issues. "Not a single phone call should be made on their behalf. No labor endorsement should grace their reelection literature. They must pay."

The rift is deep. It is unlikely to happen, but labor leaders and the pro-labor Working Families Party wrote House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi asking her to revoke Meeks' Financial Services Committee seat and Towns' Energy and Commerce one.

"Under Clinton, New York was booming, and I want to go back to that," Meeks said. "He did it with an open-door economy. We have in New York 51% unemployment among black males, and we need to do something."

And he added: "My biggest concern is to create jobs, and I voted yes because CAFTA will bring jobs to my district. The biggest employer in my district is Kennedy Airport, and CAFTA will increase trade. More exports will translate into jobs."

DR-CAFTA would eliminate tariffs on many types of manufactured and agricultural goods transported between the U.S. and Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.

Supposedly, the smaller countries, relieved of trade barriers, would export more to the U.S. That would create jobs and their standard of living would improve. Less people would have to leave their country and illegal immigration would be reduced.

Opponents, though, think that CAFTA will end up costing U.S. jobs. They also point out to the lack of enforceable labor and environmental standards.

Meeks doesn't disagree.

"Labor standards could've been stronger," he said. "It's not a perfect bill, but it's better than no bill at all."

The Queens congressman, whose constituents are 20% Caribbean immigrants, stresses that voting for CAFTA was difficult. He made his decision only after much research and traveling to the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Costa Rica.

"I met with the presidents, and they all wanted this," Meeks said. "Not long ago, there was guerrilla warfare and no democracy in Central America. Now there are democratically elected presidents. We don't want to undercut them. And we don't want them trading with China, right?"

Joseph Crowley, also a democratic Queens congressman, thinks otherwise.

CAFTA "would simply contribute to the bottom line of U.S. companies eager to take advantage of cheap labor and governments ill-equipped to enforce acceptable standards," he said.

We have seen it before. Yet Meeks believes in CAFTA.

"History will decide who was right," he said. And voters will be watching.

Originally published on August 14, 2005