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TechnoratiThe US-Colombia Unfair Trade Agreement: Just Say No!
With Congress back in session, the Bush Administration is pushing hard to pass another trade agreement based on the failed NAFTA model, this time with Colombia. The Administration is in a race against public opinion, which is quickly turning against the kind of neoliberal trade deals that have worsened poverty and inequality in every country where they have been implemented and led to a massive loss of jobs in the United States. The proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia promises more of the same. The deal will also strengthen Colombia's government, which is responsible for severe human rights violations.
With more and more people -- in Latin America and in the US -- becoming aware of the repercussions of unfair trade rules, MADRE has urged its members to take action and to let their Congressional representatives know that a vote for this trade agreement is a vote for:
1. Worsening Rural Poverty and Hunger
The FTA cuts tariffs on food imported from the US but benefits only the few Colombian farmers who export to the US. Moreover, the deal bars the Colombian government from subsidizing farmers, while large-scale US corn and rice growers enjoy billions in subsidies. These double standards guarantee that US agribusiness can undersell Colombian farmers, who will face bankruptcy as a result. Many of Colombia's small-holder farmers are women and Indigenous Peoples who are losing their livelihoods and being forced off their lands.
2. Fueling Armed Conflict and Drug Trafficking
The intertwined crises of poverty, landlessness and inequality are at the root of Colombia's 50-year armed conflict. The FTA will further concentrate wealth in the hands of a few while worsening poverty for millions of people. Many Colombian farmers, whose livelihoods will be destroyed by the FTA, will be compelled to cultivate coca (the raw material for producing cocaine) to earn a living.
Continuing a trend begun in the wake of 9-11, the US has cast the FTA as a matter of its "national security," and the Colombian government has followed suit by treating anyone opposed to the deal as a terrorist. Colombia's workers, Afro-Colombians and Indigenous Peoples have taken a clear position against the FTA. Their peaceful protests have been met with severe repression, including murder.
3. Repressing Labor Rights
Colombia is already the world's deadliest country for trade unionists, with more than 2,000 labor activists killed since 1991. The FTA does not require Colombia to meet international core labor standards; it merely calls on the government to abide by its own weak labor laws. Without enforceable labor protections, the trade deal will put more workers at risk. US workers' power to negotiate better wages will also be weakened by a deal that allows corporations operating in Colombia to keep labor costs down through sheer violence.
4. Exacerbating Climate Change and Threatening Biodiversity
The FTA will increase logging in the Colombian Amazon, weakening the rainforest's capacity to stabilize the Earth's climate. Under provisions sought by the US, corporations that have bought the rights to a country's forests, fishing waters, mineral deposits or oil reserves can totally deplete these resources, with grave consequences to ecosystems and the many species that inhabit them. Small-scale farmers and Indigenous Peoples who depend directly on these natural resources will be the first people to suffer.
5. Subordinating National Sovereignty to Corporations
By allowing corporations to sue governments for passing laws that could reduce profits, the FTA erodes Colombia's prerogative to regulate foreign investment and undermines citizens' chances of improving health, safety and environmental laws. In anticipation of the FTA, the US pressed Colombia to pass a law that would expropriate land from Indigenous and Afro-Colombians and allow multinational corporations to gain control of millions of hectares of rainforest. The forestry law was part of a series of constitutional "reforms" undertaken to meet the conditions of a US trade agreement. In January 2008, Colombian civil society won an important victory: the forestry law was struck down as a violation of Indigenous rights. Had the FTA already been in place, US corporations would now be allowed to sue the Colombian government for "lost future profits."
6. Deteriorating Public Health
By extending patent rights on medicines produced in the US, the FTA hinders the use of far cheaper generic drugs and puts life-saving medicines out of reach for millions of Colombians. Women, who are over-represented among the poor and primarily responsible for caring for sick family members, are particularly harmed by this provision.
7. Loss of Vital Public Services
The FTA requires the Colombian government to sell off critical public services, including water, healthcare and education. Elsewhere in Latin America, this kind of privatization has resulted in sharp rate increases by new corporate owners that deny millions of people access to essential services. Women are hardest hit because it is most often their responsibility to meet their families' needs for such basic services.
8. Harming Indigenous Women
The FTA would enable corporations to exploit Indigenous Peoples' traditional knowledge by allowing companies to patent seeds, plants, animals and certain medical procedures developed and used by Indigenous women over centuries. Under the FTA, Indigenous women could lose access to important medicinal plants and agricultural seeds unless they pay royalties to patent holders. Indigenous women's role as the protectors of their community's natural resources and traditional knowledge would be eroded, threatening Indigenous cultures and women's status within the community.
There Are Viable Alternatives to Free Trade Agreements
Despite more than a decade of failed NAFTA-style trade deals, the US continues to insist that its trading partners adhere to rigid neoliberal economic policies. But Latin America's social movements are articulating viable alternatives for regulating trade and economic integration in ways that benefit women, families, communities and the environment. The women of MADRE's sister organizations in Colombia and throughout Latin America affirm the need for Fair Trade Agreements that:
Are negotiated through democratic processes with effective participation from communities that will be impacted, including women's organizations.
Ensure that life-sustaining resources such as water, food staples and medicinal plants are guaranteed to all people and not reduced to commodities.
Ensure that access to basic services, including health care, housing, education, water and sanitation, are recognized as human rights that governments are obligated-and empowered-to protect.
Institute the region's highest, rather than lowest, standards for labor rights and health, safety and environmental protections.
Adopt principles of "fair trade," including social security and development assistance programs that protect small farmers and workers and that recognize the economic value of women's unpaid labor in the household.
Require foreign investors to contribute to the economic development of the communities where they have a presence.
Promote policies that respect local cultures and collective Indigenous rights and that preserve traditional agricultural techniques and biodiversity in agriculture and nature.
Recognize the links between economic growth, environmental sustainability and building peace.
Yifat Susskind is MADRE Communications Director.
16 Comments so far
Show AllUnfortunately, the writer doesn't explain why we should not leave it to the Columbian goverment to protect the interests of Columbians. Without this information, virtually all of his arguments amount to asking Americans to overrule the desires of the Columbian people, as expressed through their elected representatives. Unless the author can demonstrate otherwise, we should assume that the Columbian government can protect Columbia's interest itself, and doesn't need well-meaning Americans thousands of miles away to the North telling them what to do.
How would you expect your Congressperson to vote on the following Motion?
That, in the opinion of the House, the Conservative government's massive corporate tax cuts are destroying any balance between taxes for large profitable corporations and ordinary Canadians; they are stripping the fiscal capacity of the federal government; they are disproportionately benefiting the financial, oil and gas sectors, while leaving others behind, including manufacturing and forestry; and in so doing have failed to invest in those hard-hit sectors and the needs of everyday working Canadians; therefore, this House has lost confidence in the government.
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=39&Ses=2&DocId=337636...
Which view is closest to the one you personally hold on trade agreements?
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Hon. Jack Layton (Toronto—Danforth, NDP): Mr. Speaker, today we understand why the Prime Minister's Office interfered in the U.S. primaries. By damaging Obama's campaign and undermining his position on NAFTA, the government had hoped it could avoid reopening NAFTA.
We learn that instead of trying to seize the opportunity to improve environmental standards and working conditions, the Minister of International Trade is trying to prevent such improvements. Nonetheless, he said the opposite to the representative from Maine.
What is the government's position? Does it want to reopen NAFTA or not?
Hon. Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform, CPC): Mr. Speaker, we understand that the leader of the NDP thinks that free trade has not been good for Canada. He apparently has not noticed the hundreds of thousands of new jobs that have been created as a result of that and the fact that our economy has prospered over the years. We understand that the NDP wants to go back to the old ways of fortresses against the rest of the world.
We believe Canadians can succeed. We have the best things to offer and our history and track record show that is, indeed, the case.
We intend to continue with NAFTA. We think it is providing great benefits for Canada, for the Americans, for the Mexicans. We have all become more prosperous and more secure and everyone's standard of living has risen as a result.
Hon. Jack Layton (Toronto—Danforth, NDP): Mr. Speaker, we want to hear a clear statement from the government on whether or not NAFTA will be renegotiated and whether it is willing to do the right thing for the environment and for the hard-working families in this country. We are dealing with a minister who is the same old, floor-crossing minister who signed the softwood sellout where hundreds of working families are losing their jobs, as we speak, across this country.
The fact is that there is a golden opportunity here to work with our friends across the border to fix a trade deal that is not working for working families. Will the government do it, yes or no?
Hon. Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the reality is that NAFTA has been working very well for working families in Canada. We have no intention of scrapping that. We know there is a party in the House of Commons that said that it would scrap it if it ever got into power and that when it got into power, which is the only thing it is ever interested in doing, it did not bother to scrap it at all and kept it. The reason they kept it is that it is good for Canada.
Since we became the government, guess what, things have been getting even better on the economy. Since we became government, nearly 800,000 new jobs for Canadians, good, high paying, permanent and full time jobs almost all of them. The strong economy has allowed us to reduce the GST to 5% to help every individual in Canada, working families, everybody alike.
I will say yes to this agreement. I find the Colombian guerillas to be the worst violators of human rights anywhere in the western hemisphere. Were it not for their atrocities Colombians today would enjoy a much higher standard of living. Colombia is no different from other Latin American countries as far as income disparities are concerned. As a matter of fact it is no different from the United States where 10 percent of the people own 90 percent of the resources.
MADRE has its own agenda which is not compatible with the majority of Colombians who march by the millions on the streets asking for an end to the guerrillas murder and kidnapping. How dares MADRE simpathize with such criminals.
Call your representatives, reject this trade agreement. Any furure trade agreements must have enforceable protection written in for workers, environment, labor laws, protection for children from slave labor, protect the national interest of both countries, protection for health issues. The list is endless just because all previous agreements have been so abusive.
Haven't we heard both Hillary and Barack sticking up for Colombia in their recent illegal invasions of Ecuador? They both have had inappropriate anti Chavez moments as well. So much for change from the Democrats.
let me explain trade agreements. If I move my factory to India and produce there for sale here I make more money and you, the consumer saves money. The Indians make money too. Some American loses his/her job. We sacrifice an American to help some Americans and an Indian owner. Other Indians get to work for a miserable wage instead of not working at all. The real winners, as always are the owners, and the consumer gets a break so he goes along with it. The ones getting hurt scream and the others look the other way. How many of you are willing to give up on cheap Chinese products to save an American job? The solution is for the unemployed American to get a better job, but for that you need an economy that can provide those jobs. Not happening. The quality of jobs is going down. Even professionals can't get a job. But the owners always win.
REJECT IT.................NOW
CJM April 2nd, 2008 3:37 pm
"I'm confused. All these points mentioned....
Does the author mean in Colombia, or the USA?"
CJM,
Yeah, it's both. Trade agreements only fill the coffers of the super-wealthy "international corporations" and their shareholders.
This trade agreement should be burried along with any legislators in both countries who pass this piece-of-shit legislation.
Sadly, it's always about money and not people!
Enough said.
Nafta, Cafta, call it what you want. It is basically the legalization
of war on other countries in order to steal their resources and cheap labor. I voted
for Bill Clinton two times and paid a big price for a lesson learned.
He pushed NAFTA and the 1996 Telecommunications Act which then
woke me up to his major motivation in life, money and power before
human beings. Same old shit, same old imperialism and oppression for the sake of profit, repackaged in a new decor called globalism. It was a crock then
and it's a bigger crock now. Starve the insanity that currently rules us.
Go on a spending fast. Drive only when you have to. Buy locally. Plant a
garden. The ways are limitless.
RE: Does the author mean in Colombia, or the USA?
Probably both.
Even Lou Dobbs likes the concept of Fair Trade:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=N_MR7tL7tWs
This is from Take Back America 2008
Part I
http://youtube.com/watch?v=lbZtRJ4494Y
Part II
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XdPf-Za2UD0
NAFTA came up during Question Period today. The minutes should be up tomorrow. There is also a Confidence Motion based on Corporate Tax Cuts.
I'm confused. All these points mentioned, viz:
1. Worsening Rural Poverty and Hunger
2. Fueling Armed Conflict and Drug Trafficking
3. Repressing Labor Rights
4. Exacerbating Climate Change and Threatening Biodiversity
5. Subordinating National Sovereignty to Corporations
6. Deteriorating Public Health
7. Loss of Vital Public Services
8. Harming Indigenous Women
Does the author mean in Colombia, or the USA?
All for profit and profit for the top is the battle cry of big business today--what's to stop this, or some modified, form of agreement from going through?
"I find the Colombian guerillas to be the worst violators of human rights anywhere in the western hemisphere."
Nonsense, every human rights organization (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the UN itself) covering the situation will tell you that over 80% of the atrocities are committed by the right wing forces there, they'll tell you that they export the majority of the drugs, have strong and decades long connection to the Colombian government (especially with Uribe in charge) and who will be the victors in this trade deal. The FARC are a creation of the violence committed by the right wing forces, they certainly aren't angels, they commit atrocities as well and have gotten in to the drug business themselves, but to claim that they're as bad as the right wing death squads is ridiculous, that is directly opposite of what every organization working in Colombia has said for decades. The Colombian right wing forces who control the government, who are part of an apparatus that kills more union leaders than the rest of the world combined, who've killed over 3,000 activists from the left wing political party (and killed over numerous activists during the last Colombian election) who was asked to take part in elections in the 80's and 90's, who export the majority of drugs and who fix elections, who openly attack the press and kill journalists, shouldn't be rewarded with a trade deal that will benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else. The Colombian GOVERNMENT has the worse human rights record in the Western Hemisphere, by a long shot, and their violence is not only committed against guerillas.
The fact is that Colombia is already violent because the extreme differences in wealth there and this "free trade" deal will only make the situation worse, while rewarding the worse killers in the process.
As long as Colombian narco executives and narco assassins are given a free hand in the US it is 'fair' deal.
What's the new new deal to be called?