The Secret Aspects of NAFTA
Colombia deserves a cold handshake rather than a warm abrazo from the Bush Administration
President Bush has set the proposed, FTA to Congress for legislative action. He stressed the fact that Colombia is a good friend and that on economic and security grounds it deserves to be rewarded by the Democratic-controlled congress with an affirmative vote.

In order to justify a free trade pact with Bogotá, President Bush repeatedly presents Colombia as a thriving democracy and President Uribe as a committed constitutionalist. In fact, Uribe for years has had a sinister history of sanctioning human rights violations, compromising the work of human rights agencies and jeopardizing their personal security by publicly accusing them as scarcely being distinguishable from leftist guerillas. At the present moment, Colombia’s Attorney General is investigating corruption charges which he had lodged against a large number of legislators coming from Uribe’s own party, that involve claims that these political allies of Uribe were directly linked to the extreme rightwing death squads known as the AUC, of which Uribe was said to be part of this relationship. Uribe also undermined the core of Washington’s anti-drug strategy in Colombia by allowing AUC members to plead guilty and thus obtain immunity against being extradited to the U.S. to stand trial for their drug-trafficking activities. This initiative in effect torpedoes the heart of Washington’s anti-drug strategy in Colombia.

The Bush administration is grateful that Uribe has been a strong backer of a distorted U.S. policy in the region. But what may be good for the White House and the Nariño Palace is not necessarily good for America or Latin America. The fact that Colombia is one of the few friendly faces that Washington can count on in the hemisphere is an indication of how isolated this administration is in the region, and which probably has done irreversible damage to any prospects for a relationship of constructive engagement with the rest of the hemisphere.

Today, Colombia is probably the worse human rights violation in Latin America and is a nation where labor leaders and democratic political activists are murdered with impunity to the indifference of the Colombian authority. Colombia is without any bona fide claims to be granted a free trade relationship with the U.S. and Congress would be wise to reject any further trade concessions to Bogotá at a time that U.S. workers are suffering from Bush’s neglect, if not indifference.

Larry Birns
Director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

NAFTA
This is another in a series of essays on the problems and prospects of NAFTA.

Specifically related to NAFTA and such associated issues as free trade, immigration, drug trafficking and economic security, are the security concerns of the trade pact’s members. Also important to note in an increasingly globalized world, security threats are not just posed by military personnel and weapons, but include economic security issues as well. To uncover the relationship between NAFTA and security, it is important to know how the trade pact was first intended to deal with such matters. NAFTA was heralded by politicians, economists and, to the American public, as a grand equalizer. It was the first area agreement between developed and developing nations designed to provide economic growth opportunities for both.

There have existed many expectations concerning NAFTA’s ability to meet its lofty objectives. It is important to note the economic expectations surrounding NAFTA, and the arguments currently being used to discuss the trade pact, as it centers on its actual performance. First, due to its trade liberalization trend, NAFTA was intended to enhance the export markets of both the United States and Mexico. Prior to its implementation in 1994, centrist economists Hufbauer and Schott, based at the Institute for International Economics, wrote, “over time, the NAFTA should impel industrial reorganization along regional lines, with firms taking best advantage of each country’s ability to produce components and assembled products and thus enhancing competitiveness in the global marketplaceâ€