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TechnoratiObama and NAFTA
Will he or won't he?
In the shadow of the economic crisis, a war of words rages over whether President-elect Barack Obama will hold to his campaign promise of opening up the North American Free Trade Agreement for renegotiation.
The debate isn't likely to stay in the shadows for long. Campaign attacks on NAFTA and candidate promises to renegotiate proved that demands for revision of the free-trade model have reached critical mass in U.S. politics. A post-election report from Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch heralded a net gain of 28 fair-trade members in the House and seven senators. Most of these politicians, it notes, didn't just happen to be critical of the free-trade model. They actively ran on a fair-trade platform and won partly on that stance.
The economic crisis only strengthens those demands. If international trade and investment policy is the pillar of the current economic model, its revision must be a foundation of global restructuring plans.
Why renegotiate NAFTA?
The mainstream press is wrong when it says the United States can't "unilaterally" call for renegotiation. Not only is renegotiation permitted legally - in fact, any country can unilaterally withdraw with six months notice - but there have been many calls for renegotiation in Canada and Mexico.
Canadians have built a strong grassroots movement to protect natural resources from predatory NAFTA clauses. Broad-based citizen groups like the Council of Canadians oppose NAFTA because of the energy proportionality clause that requires Canada to export oil to the United States even in times of scarcity, the investor-state clauses that give investors the right to sue governments contained in Chapter 11, and the clause that permits bulk-water exports. Polls in the general population show that 61% favor renegotiation.
In Mexico, 100,000 people marched in the streets on two separate occasions under the banner of renegotiation to revise NAFTA's agricultural provisions. They demanded protection of basic food production by removing corn and beans from the agreement. In 2003, former President Vicente Fox requested opening up the agreement only to be rebuffed by the U.S. government.
For the United States, the main issue is jobs. Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, cites a loss of 200,000 manufacturing jobs due to NAFTA for his state alone. The nation has lost 3.1 million manufacturing jobs since 1994, and its trade deficit with Mexico and Canada has risen to $138.5 billion in 2007 from $9.1 billion in 1993. The opposition to NAFTA within the United States goes well beyond organized labor. While job loss and insecurity under globalization were major constituency-builders in blue-collar states during the elections, polls taken before the election revealed that a national majority opposes free trade and particularly NAFTA, and that opinion increased during the campaign. A June 2008 Rasmussen nationwide poll showed 56% in favor of renegotiating NAFTA. Many people feel that NAFTA has given companies incentives to move production to where labor is cheaper, exporting jobs and eroding working conditions.
In general, U.S. opposition to the trade agreement is split between fair-trade groups that focus on jobs and the environment and a nationalist rightwing that believes NAFTA and its offspring, the Security and Prosperity Partnership, threaten U.S. sovereignty. Neither of these currents could properly be called "protectionist," and both call for more transparency in the process.
Among the differing priorities, citizen demands concur that the current agreement favors transnational companies and is unfair to citizens in all three nations.
Broadly shared priorities for renegotiation are:
- Eliminate Chapter 11. Corporations shouldn't have the right to sue governments and supersede national laws. Trade tribunals lack adequate transparency and accountability, and consistently reflect a strong, pro-corporate bias.
- End the energy proportionality clause between the United States and Canada, and exclude bulk water as a commodity. Canadian national and provincial governments should be able to fulfill their responsibilities in long-term energy planning without restrictions under NAFTA.
- Get NAFTA out of food and agriculture. Countries should be able to develop national agendas to assure food quality, farm livelihoods, and consumer safety and then adapt the trade agreement to those objectives rather than the reverse. NAFTA favors corporate farms and bans certain policy tools to support small farmers and consumers, including special products protections. Renegotiating the agreement's agricultural provisions shouldn't involve surgical incisions of specific clauses, but a deep reform and reorientation toward food sovereignty.
- End the Security and Prosperity Partnership. This 2005 NAFTA extension into further trade and investment liberalization and national security has no public mandate in any of the three countries. Further negotiations on expanding integration should be reviewed and, where approved, be channeled into open, representative talks. The U.S. military aid package it spawned, the Merida Initiative, should be converted into a development aid package for the 2010 appropriations.
Citizen movements also call for national governments to have more development and social policy tools, many of which are prohibited under the competition and privatization terms of NAFTA. Some of these groups together produced a document of 10 areas that should be reviewed: energy, agriculture, role of the state, financial services, foreign investment, employment, migrants, environment, intellectual property, and dispute settlement.
Will He or Won't He?
Obama's campaign promise was explicit: "NAFTA's shortcomings were evident when signed and we must now amend the agreement to fix them." The president-elect called for enforceable labor and environmental standards in the text, an end to the ability of corporations to sue governments, and emphasizing the needs of "Main Street" over "Wall Street."
But now some Obama-watchers claim he's waffling on his trade commitments. Although these contentions in the pro-free-trade press are mostly wishful thinking, experts and activists are following the appointments closely. So far it has been a mixed message. The initial nomination of Bill Richardson, point-person for the passage of NAFTA under the Clinton administration, didn't sit well with fair-trade groups and elicited a sigh of relief among free-trade promoters, who instantly chalked up the president-elect's anti-NAFTA statements to electoral propaganda. Obama's economic advisors, led by Larry Summers, and appointee for Treasury, Timothy Geithner, at face value would also indicate a commitment to the status quo on trade. And when Ron Kirk, a former mayor of Dallas who proclaimed his city the "capital of NAFTA," accepted the nomination for U.S. Trade Representative, it reversed satisfaction among fair-traders at the initial nomination of Xavier Becerra, who turned down the job.
Pending the new Commerce designate, that leaves Hilda Solis, Obama's nominee for Secretary of Labor, as the only real bright spot for fair-traders. A NAFTA critic, she would wield real clout since jobs will be the pivotal issue for the United States in renegotiation. As a Latina, she also has an acute understanding of the need to make NAFTA fair for all partners.
Pessimistically, it's possible to imagine that the Obama presidency could end up merely adopting the Democratic platform on trade, which would stick side agreements in the text, add International Labor Organization core labor standards, and create an expanded U.S. jobs displacement program. Obama voted for the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement, which was modified along these lines. But the economic crisis has changed everything. Even as the Bush administration frantically - and incredibly - insists that free trade isn't the problem but the solution, most other countries are taking a second look at the model. As the crisis sets in, Europe wants more regulation and developing countries want more policy space. And Americans want more protection from the disaster that's currently befalling them.
With every appointment, Obama has insisted he'll be the one calling the shots. For the next few weeks, then, all we really have to go on for predicting trade policy is Washington's current favorite game - the psychic exploration of Obama's inner mind. A more productive activity for fair-traders is to pull out all the stops in the tri-national campaigns to renegotiate NAFTA and impose a moratorium on new free trade agreements. This is an historic opportunity to change course in crisis.
Citizens Organize for Renegotiation
Citizen organizations and legislators have called for renegotiation of NAFTA in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The collapse of the financial sector spells the need for a reconversion strategy for the "real economy;" that is, U.S. productive capacity in the United States. This strategy will require a careful and critical look at NAFTA, our blind reliance on market forces, and the promotion of outsourcing as a competition strategy.
The industrial policy that Obama outlined clashes ideologically and legally with NAFTA and other free trade agreements. It hasn't been lost on the rest of the world that the U.S. government is adopting measures such as massive subsidies and bailouts that it has sought to deny developing countries under free-trade rules. Robert Kuttner at The American Prospect refers to this as "the sin of committing industrial policy" and warns that it's only a matter of time before a trade partner registers a suit against Obama's anti-crisis measures. This would be an excellent opportunity to expose the hypocrisy of our trade policies and chart a new course.
The new fair-trade members of Congress and others outside the leadership clique will provide new allies and be far more willing to move beyond the stodgy party leadership's position on trade. Some already have. The TRADE Act, introduced into Congress in April 2008, calls for a NAFTA review and lays out fair-trade principles.
Meanwhile, poor countries need maximum room for maneuver to help those who are already living on the edge. Mexico is no exception. Although the current government isn't likely to willingly change neoliberal policies and accept NAFTA renegotiation, the citizenry opposes NAFTA two to one. Echoing the phrase that did in John McCain's candidacy, President Felipe Calderón continues to argue that the Mexican economy will be fine even as reports of job loss, wage declines, inflation, and capital flight pour in. In Mexico, as in the United States, only energetic measures can address the deepening crisis and growing social unrest.
Renegotiation can and should be good for citizens in all three countries. With such a high degree of integration, our futures are intertwined. A recent study calculated that when Mexican wages drop 10% relative to U.S. wages, attempts to cross the border illegally rise 6%. Real wages in Mexico fell 24% from December 2006 to August 2008 and are plummeting now with the crisis; renegotiation should include a view toward job generation and retention in Mexico, and a compensation fund similar to the European Union's transition funds for less-developed countries. The current security aid in the ill-conceived Merida Initiative should be converted to this end.
Review and Redo
The first step for renegotiation must be a broad, in-depth review of NAFTA, or rather three reviews, one per country. Review bodies must be independent, representing different orientations and expertise. These should carefully define the criteria of evaluation, including social, economic, political, and cultural indicators. The U.S. TRADE Act, which also calls for a review, lists some criteria for evaluation, but we need precision. Also necessary are public consultations and other mechanisms for incorporating civil society input into the process.
The review would achieve several important goals. First, it would open up a debate that in the United States had been practically dormant between NAFTA's passage and the recent presidential campaign. It also would provide valuable information on impacts. The apples-and-oranges debate on trade policy - one side argues that NAFTA increased international trade and the other argues that international trade isn't all it's cracked up to be - is sterile and abstract. We should be able to move beyond this debate with additional data and analysis.
To convince public opinion of the case for renegotiation, at this critical moment in a process of economic integration gone awry, will require thinking about international trade and investment in the context of new economic arrangements. To do this we need to build both arguments and alliances. Renegotiation demands must be woven into comprehensive proposals for reform that have a coherent logic and go beyond NAFTA articles. Related issues include enforcing antitrust legislation, ending commodity speculation, adopting supply management mechanisms, creating grain reserves, supporting domestic food production, and building local marketing systems.
Renegotiating NAFTA should no longer be a question of "will he or won't he." To confront the crisis and establish mutual well-being in the region, the debate must move quickly now to "how and when."
32 Comments so far
Show Allsnydly
Corporations.
Globalization.
NAFTA, etc.
All just to concentrate wealth and power.
And, boy oh boy did they...until now. All the money is jam-packed into the top 1% and they won't let go of it until it is "pryed out of their cold, dead hands".
Three centuries and thirty years of wealth concentration about to go down the tubes, clobbered by chaos, they have gutted mass markets, killed the goose that layed the golden eggs.
Gollum carries the day!
But... maybe BHO can walk us out of this. Hope.
The Bush and Clinton Families have become super rich from the destruction of
our industrial base. Why do Foreign countries donate tens of Millions of Dollars
to Bill Clinton. We will never recover from this Depression that has been brought
on by the policies of the Clintons and the Bushees. Our industrial base has been
sent to China through subsidies that we the taxpayers paid for. We paid for our
own destruction. Why is Bill Clinton held to such high esteem? Are we all that
stupid? What Clinton and Bush have done to this country would be called
Treason during WWII...and maybe they would be shot.
Those who think of NAFTA as 'just another' free trade agreement may be mistaken. It may be only the first step towards "deep integration" of North America. There are obvious benefits to those in business, government and the military. These guys will be happy to scrap NAFTA and replace it with something that sounds different - such as "Security and Prosperity Partnership". Google "deep integration" and "Security and Prosperity Partnership". You WILL NOT hear about these in the mainstream media. And the names are carefully chosen so as not to set off any alarms for those who are already sleeping anyway. Ever heard of the Trans-Texas Corridor? Ron Paul called it the "NAFTA Superhighway" and said that the road would lead towards a North American Union - where you'll be free to spend your Amero.
When, may be a year ago (?), Vicente Fox was going around all the talk shows pontificating on the need to have an open mind about free trade, nobody challenged him - because Americans seemed to believe anyone must be better than George W Bush. Jon Stewart, of the Daily Show, of all the people, even let him get away with stupid remarks about the Bolivian President, Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez.
Also, despite the author's claim of a "strong grassroots movement" in Canada, there doesn't seem to be any change in the majority voting trend or the government policies. Can you believe that they actually voted for the same government - as late as October 2008, headed by someone who seems to admire Bush, because, apparently the other guy, Stephane Dion wasn't charismatic enough, and speaks with a thick French accent? Even though Dion is much more committed to and publicly advocated a shift towards a 'green economy'? Canada's per-capita energy consumption and per-capita greenhouse gas emissions must be in the top three in the world, if I'm not mistaken. That is another term you will not hear in the MSM - "per capita" - when talking about energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. I think the presence of the bad-old USofA acts as a cover to far too many countries, especially Canada, to essentially get away with similar behavior.
Highintel: Can we do better?
WAS.
The Bush-proposed ALCA is dead.
Hugo Chavez and Diego Maradona buried it in Aregnitina in 2004.
South America has created its own integrated model.
Time for the US to move on.
"China Currency Manipulation Act of 2008":
A bill to require the Secretary of the Treasury to take action with respect to currency manipulation by the People's Republic of China, and for other purposes.
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/kirby/2009/0109.html
The trade deficit and M3 are getting larger than some of the swollen "free-trade" heads on Capitol Hill. Perhaps some of them are actually considering the warning that former Comptroller General, David Walker, gave them, before he quit his job. He pretty much told them that this county was going over a cliff.
These clowns can only hide behind a veil of ignorance for so long before "The People" demand change. As millions more lose their jobs over the next few months, Congress won't have any choice but to re-visit the trade agreements they all signed onto which created more millionaires and billionaires while they destroyed the middle class here and abroad.
All Hell will break loose if they don't engage in constructing "fair" policies that return jobs with living wages back to this country; not just for economic reasons, but for our national security.
Congress has betrayed our trust and the anger is building!
If I understand Andrew Bacevich "The Limits of Power" correctly, neither "free trade" nor "fair trade" matters. The fundamental problem is our American insatiable demand that we must have the highest standard of living of any nation in the world which feeds into a war-based economy and foreign policy. If Bacevich is correct, then nothing President Obama does on "free trade" vs. "fair trade" matters as long as he upholds our military/industrial war machine. Given his recent record absolutely nothing will "change" in our exploitation of the third world.
I wish I could be as optomistic as this citizen about the Corporate Dems challenging NAFTA. Of course campaign rhetoric is one thing but we even saw refernces to the fake nature of Obama;s NAFTA bashing during the campaign. Pretty much bunting in a minor league ballpark.
How can we bring real change in a world where the job of the Democrats is to mute majorities leaving 70% majorities without the representation necessary to turn the lemon sappings of dissent into the Yorba Linda sunkist fruit of actual change? How to prevent this dissent from dying in the cruel Santa Anna Wind that is Wolf Blitzkreig's corporate hothouse breath of CNN? (sorry for the regional citrus metaphor I have been reading Roger Morris EXCELLENT BIO SOCIAL HISTORY OF EARLY RICHARD NIXON> ALL BOOKS BY ROGER MORRIS ARE LIKE READING 19 GOOD BOOKS AT THE SAME TIME SO MUTI FACEDTED IS HIS ANALYSIS, EVEN HIS BOOK ON THE CLINTONS PARTNERS IN POWER, FIRST CAME OUT IN '96 IS MORE RELEVENT TODAY THAN EVER, ENTIRELY FULL OF STUFF YOU NEVER HEARD OF, NOT TO MENTION HIS MASTERPIECE WITH SALLY DENTON THE MONEY AND THE POWER, WHICH SET ME ON THE PATH OF.... ILL GET BACK TO YOU ON THAT ONE)
Here's how.
COXIES SIDEWAYS MARCHING POSTING ARMY: our belief-- subject to further mulling-- is that alternative media is not enough.
There have to be attacks on the Corporate Media posted in places where the consumers of this toxic sludge can actually see it. Of course these attacks dont need to be always about the media. They could be just examples of real journalism, from sites like here, sometimes, and other great sites like Consortium News.
The problem is that the internet is not currently "working" because its structure cannot create the common denominator necessary to galvanize large but unarticulated opinion into a clearly articulated common denominator. Thus it becomes all too easy for a corporate pol like Obama-Pro war Rahm Emanuel - to fool enough of the fragments to win with blurry ambiguities on Wolf Blitzkreig with his oilandbanking Dems and oilandbankingRepubs.
By posting similar messages SIDEWAYS ON AT LEAST THREE DIFFERENT WHOLE SPECTRUM SITES DAILY-- IE NOT TAILORED TO MANICURED FOUNDATION FUNDED """""LEFT""""""" we can create more of a common denominator.
This is the ideology of Coxies' Sidways Marching Posting Army, which by the way is named in honer of certain dusty citizens of the 1890's.
Right now there are two members, myself and my pancreas. but we are growing every third second. Please tell other interested citizens,
____Please read JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, or people will remain thinking that the Presidents Chosen by Wolf Blitzer will change everything, and we-- as a species will devlove into quivering lime Jello, and not even cold quiverin
before NAFTA's passage, 1992 presidential candidate Willie Clinton opposed NAFTA in its current version, but he wanted to "fix it."
after the election,he inserted some meaningless & unenforceable provisions and NAFTA passed with strong democratic party support.
i suspect we can expect similar results if Obama renegotiates NAFTA.
.Even as Obama the campaigner was talking about reformation of NAFTA and GATT his advisors were meeting with Canada to assure them that he wasn't serious only campaigning......
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Saturmalia
Canada's Minority Gov that needs the support of some of the other parties to pass any change. This is what got Harper ( Can. prime minister) in trouble.As you say the Liberals like NAFTA , The NDP like NAFTA since they are a jobs type party and in Quebec under The Bloc if it cost one job then it is a no go. As long for example the big 3 auto can make 10% to and soon 80% of their cars off shore and any other company do the same in the name of profits America will not be any better off. Go to the stores and read the bar codes or country where the product was made. USA, or even in Canada is a minority.
Answer, buy some land outside the city and live off it as much as you can. Stop waiting for your Government to save you and save yourself.
The Glue That Holds Chaos Together
Kucinich said that NAFTA can be eradicated with the stroke of a pen. If that is true, then where is the discrepency?
There was a good line in the movie Roller Ball, a move set in a future where one corporation owns the whole planet. Government officials were 'executives'
John Houseman played the chairman of the board and told James Caan at one point "The corporation provides all our needs and all they ask in return, all they have ever asked of any of us is that we not question corporate decisions."
That's pretty much the situation now except that all they want, all they have ever wanted is everything: all the money, all the land, all the food and water, all the power, and all they provide in return is a longer work day and reduced wages.
I'm not interested in renegotiating NAFTA or any kind of NAFTA do-over, I just want the damn thing abolished. Stick a fork in NAFTA.
I would prefer to stick more than a fork in NAFTA.
NAFTA was designed as a propaganda show for Bush Padre to be re-elected and for Salinas to head up to WTO. I think we remember how that turned out.
Piggy multinationals supported it thinking they were going to make a killing in Mexico--they did kill the environment every place they put their plants. And a lot of women drawn to the maquiladores got killed.
En passant Mexico's agricultural sector was destroyed.
At least half a million folks a year crossed the border to work at low-level jobs in Gringolandia.
And that allowed Gringos to blame their problems on brown people and the various presidents of Mexico to show lower unemployment figures.
Such crap.
Since you are a Gringa, do you blame your problems on little brown people?
Or little purple people in black flying saucers??
By the way, I was not aware that Bush was running for reelection in 1993, when NAFTA was approved, but, hey, what are statistics when a bitter Gringa is ranting?
Bush ran for re-election in 1992--not that I give a rat's ass.
NAFTA was already drafted when Clinton took office--he cosmetically tinkered with it, then bought votes to approve it by promising public works projects to congress voters who were not in favor of it.
I returned to Gringolandia to work against NAFTA, but there were not enough of us.
"There are lies, damned lies and statistics". Mark Twain.
And then there are people like liberty who sink so low as to make fools of themselves daily on blogsites--for FREE.
No reason to let Selina's comments stir 'racial feelings' in you. She is pointing out the damage these trade agreements did in Mexico. NAFTA and GATT are race to the bottom agreements, which mainly enrich the elites (whether corporatist or investment), and marginally the workers in very poor countries where there was no employment at all (at least until those industries leave once finding cheaper labor and reduced environmental regulation elsewhere). In their wake, they leave a country raped of its national resources, unemployment, and pollution. It really amounts to cleverly disguised modern day piracy.
To Selina: It's not just the gringos and 'gringas' (my spell-check wanted to change this word to [grin-gas] ha ha} who are at fault. The worker everywhere has been had, and many corrupt elements (in all countries involved) are responsible; namely, the corporate and governmental profiteers who were all too glad to sign on, and sell their workers down the river.
Most of the rest of us (here and in Mexico) are and have been (and in some cases continue to be) ignorant pawns caught inside a huge propaganda bubble, which is beginning to show severe cracks.
The name is Serena.
Selina was a chicana singer.
Ignorance is a state of being that Gringolandia has been committed to for way too long.
Ever heard the phrase, Ignorance of the law is no excuse?
Religious propaganda has a lot to do with the perpetuation of ignorance, both here and in Mexico. People will vehemently deny reality in favor of religious nonsense. Reality on the other hand doesn't care; it is as neutral as it is merciless, meaning it is not at all concerned with one's religious (or political) beliefs, or even race. You are correct, though, ignorance will not forestall any consequences. Man-made 'law' does not count in my book if it contradicts natural law, and is often highly immoral and unfair, but that is a different matter.
George H.W. Bush ran for re-election in 1992 (and lost to Bush-lite Clinton) and was a proponent of NAFTA as Serena correctly stated, you simpleton.
He may also but a simpleton, but primarily he is a troll--and generally trolls only against ME.
Guess that shows I need to keep posting, since I am so influential. Ha!
I remember when the Seattle riots woke me up and inspired me to investigate what was going on. During Clinton's admin the economy was relatively strong. Oddly enough, Ross Perot had it right when he said "you can hear that sucking sound..." Some people understood the ramifications of NAFTA and GATT even then, but they lured us into a kind of narcosis with cheap prices (as with Wal-mart) and screamed 'protectionism' at those opposed to the agreements. In hind sight what fools we have been. Can you hear them laughing and saying "suckers," much as some Enron employees laughed at some old people who were 'crying in the dark?'
We all need to wake up and shake off our narcoses. Unfortunately, it will now be a long, hard road back to solvency and self-sustainability. Dramatic change is coming, whether we like it or not. The more we resist the inevitable, the more difficult it will be. The best things we can do for ourselves is to get our financial house in order and learn to be more self-sufficient. At this point--and I hate to say it--emigration from the US might not a bad idea, if one has that option.
If I were you, I would get out sooner--rather than waiting until other countries close the door on Gringo immigrants.
Especially if you are still underwater in Seattle.
I left there in 1984.
You're going to need a rural Democrat to even consider trying. Don't expect the big city gulags to even try. Great idea though.
Obama already said yes to "free trading" with Columbia and last year, the kid couldn't or wouldn't even make a move on NAFTA since he had and still does have pro-NAFTA "economic advisors". The odds that Obama will put a moratorium on NAFTA is about as good as the odds that Israel will give the Palestinians their land back. That Clinton bastard signed that deal and Dubya hasn't stopped it so why expect Obama to even try? You'll need a Dave Freudenthal Democrat to do that kind of a thing.
rtdrury, great post. So call free trade has uprooted cultures and the environment. In the US, the displaced Latin Americans are viewed as a source of cheap labor or our immigration problem. USans have lost jobs and governments have lost sovereignty. The winners are the transnational corporations and US agribusiness.
While Canadians want to protect their ecosystems, and while Mexicans want to protect their farming traditions, both from the capitalist godzilla USA, USans want to protect their "jobs" (leftwing) and "sovereignty" (rightwing). This comparison shows that Canadians and Mexicans "get it" while USans don't. Our neighbors value what is important in the bigger scheme of things. The earth's natural legacy built over many many millenia and the society's socio-economic independence built over many many centuries.
In contrast, "jobs" are a terrible thing to value. "Jobs" leave it to far-flung elites to control our economy and society. Instead, we should protect our local economic autonomy from the elites, like the Mexicans are trying to do. And "sovereignty" is plain evil because it is code for racist/classist/nationalist segregations, excuses for the USA's endless "wars on people". Instead, we should be protecting the ecosystems' sovereignty from us, like the Canadians, are trying to do. USans only value "jobs" and "sovereignty" because the elites concocted these surrogate values to enslave us.
"Jobs" serve the elites by making the people dependent on them economically. This problem feeds on itself when the economic dependence promotes a broader dependence for information, ideas, frames, values. "Sovereignty" serves the elites by making the people dependent on them for protection against "foreign armies" and obstructing the people from embracing shared, universal values and human solidarity.
The author writes: "The apples-and-oranges debate on trade policy - one side argues that NAFTA increased international trade and the other argues that international trade isn't all it's cracked up to be - is sterile and abstract. We should be able to move beyond this debate with additional data and analysis."
Why should we move beyond this debate? In arguing "that international trade isn't all it's cracked up to be", we illustrate that the elites' ideas are bogus and thus we should shift our individual exchange/association away from the elites and toward our local communities. The people need this illustration. If we leave this debate unresolved we cover up yet again the real underlying problem: Elite domination over people.
Very good.
The Probelm in Canada is that both the Liberals and Conservatives support NAFTA and with Ignatief now the Liberal leader it highly unliekly they will seek to renegotaite.
The SPP is one scary piece of work. Back when the Seattle protests occurred the MAI was put on the back burner. SPP is the MAI taken to a whole new level.
I read a book on what the MAI was trying to accomplish and it was purely a document to enhance the power of Corporations and the sanctity of Profits.
When will the new moon be gone that we may sell corn, and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, and make the ephah small and the shekel great?---Amos
Hope he does renegotiate the thing, I'd like to see an amended deal be passed in a minority parliament (Canada's)...
You really hope he'll do that? The guy's already voted in support of the Columbia "free trade" agreement last year and he's already got pro-NAFTA "economic advisors". Good luck hoping.