Letter: Representative Jones strongly opposes CAFTA

http://www.reflector.com/

Letter: Representative Jones strongly opposes CAFTA

HASH(0x715990)


Sunday, July 24, 2005

You published an article July 16 titled "Opponents rally as Bush tours mill, college" which stated that I am "leaning against the CAFTA deal." I want to clarify that I am strongly opposed to CAFTA and have been an outspoken critic of this outsourcing agreement since day one.

I have expressed this position in many venues: on Lou Dobbs' show on CNN; at multiple Capitol Hill news conferences; and in an ongoing series of speeches on the House floor.

CAFTA is nothing but an extension of NAFTA. In fact, 85 percent of the language in CAFTA is similar to that in NAFTA. Since NAFTA was signed, North Carolina has lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs, and CAFTA would mean more job losses.

CAFTA provides every incentive to outsource jobs to Central America, where countries have few labor and environmental standards.

CAFTA also allows China to backdoor fabric into Central America, where it can be assembled and shipped into the United States duty-free.

The last thing we need to do is help China. We have already outsourced 1.5 million jobs to China in the past 15 years.

Like NAFTA, CAFTA would do little to stem the massive tide of illegal immigrants flooding over our southern border. Since NAFTA, the number of Mexican illegal aliens in the United States has grown over 350 percent.

Furthermore, CAFTA would strip away our nation's sovereignty by requiring the United States to conform federal, state and local laws to more than 1,000 pages of CAFTA-established international law that goes far beyond trade matters.

In short, CAFTA is a bad deal for America and a bad deal for eastern North Carolina. I oppose it and am doing all I can to convince my colleagues in Congress to join me in voting against it.


REP. WALTER B. JONES JR.

3rd Congressional District