Top Ten Reasons to Oppose the Central America Free Trade Agreement
1. CAFTA Expands a Proven Disaster
CAFTA would expand the failed NAFTA model of international trade to five
new Central American countries, with plans to include the Dominican Republic
already under way. But ten years of NAFTA have shown just how devastating
these agreements can be for working families and the environment. In the
United States over 766,000 jobs have been lost due to NAFTA. In the
maquiladora zones along the US-Mexico border, wages are low, union
organizing is suppressed, and industrial pollution has dramatically
increased cases of hepatitis and birth defects among workers. NAFTA should
be repealed, not expanded.
2. CAFTA Contains No Protection for Workers and the Environment
CAFTA contains no meaningfully enforceable standards that might prevent
countries from lowering their public health, workplace safety, and
environmental laws in order to attract investment. NAFTA has already
contributed to a race to the bottom in wages and environmental protection as
companies pit desperate workers in each country against each other. Trade
agreements are presented to the public as a vehicle for economic
development, but when these agreements fail to condition trade access on
enforcement of international labor and environmental standards, only
corporate CEOs see the benefits. Free trade is clearly no model for
sustainable development.
3. CAFTA Promotes Sweatshop Labor
CAFTA does not require countries to live up to standards set by the
International Labor Organization. Instead, it would require only that
countries enforce existing domestic labor laws, regardless of how inadequate
these laws may be. In the context of Central America, where laws fall far
below international standards and governments are often actively hostile
towards unions, this model amounts to nothing less than a recipe for rampant
labor violations. CAFTA will no doubt lead to an expansion of the region's
maquila industry, already one of the world's most developed.
4. CAFTA Drives Family Farmers Off the Land
Thousands of small family farms in both the US and Central America will
be lost because of CAFTA, much like what has already happened to their
Mexican, American, and Canadian counterparts under NAFTA. Meanwhile, giant
corporate farms companies, like ADM and Cargill, will be the ones benefiting
most from their downfall and the trade agreement. CAFTA would likely force a
massive migration of erstwhile farmers to large urban areas to work in the
maquila industry, or to risk the dangerous journey to the US.
5. CAFTA Privatizes Public Services
CAFTA investor rules will make it impossible for governments in Central
America and the US to give preferences to public providers for services.
Under CAFTA, domestic regulations protecting people's right to food,
education, health, and basic utilities could be considered barriers to
trade, and open to challenges by multinational corporations. CAFTA would
require that governments bid out for services contracts, resulting in price
increases, reduced access, and compromised quality that would most severely
impact the vulnerable in our society, including the poor, children, and the
elderly.
6. CAFTA Expands Corporate Power
CAFTA would expand NAFTA rules that allow companies to sue governments
over any law that might stand in the way of their ability to profit. These
rules have already been used 27 times since 1994 to challenge some of our
most cherished public health, workplace safety and environmental laws. The
threat of being sued forces governments to either pay large fines or to pass
only pro-business legislation.
7. CAFTA Undermines Public Health
. CAFTA's provisions to protect and expand the patent monopolies of US
pharmaceutical companies in Central America will undermine access to
affordable generic AIDS drugs and increase the price of medicines.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of HIV-positive Central Americans are in
immediate need of treatment or else they will die. Of the six Latin American
countries with the highest prevalence of HIV, four are Central American,
according to the World Bank.
8. CAFTA is a Stepping Stone to FTAA Passing
CAFTA would be a strategic first step towards the larger, Free Trade Area
of the Americas, which would include every country in Central America, South
America, and the Caribbean, except Cuba. Talks on the FTAA have collapsed in
recent months following sustained pressure from the governments of Brazil,
Venezuela, and other South American and Caribbean countries. By bullying its
smaller CAFTA trading partners into accepting dangerous rules on services,
while altogether excluding the issue of agriculture, the Bush Administration
hopes to divide the growing coalition of developing countries that oppose it
and set a dangerous precedent for its position on FTAA
.
9. Opposition is Building
Thousands have been organizing to defeat CAFTA throughout Central America
and the US, with mass mobilizations in Managua, San Salvador, and San Jose
and pickets at the negotiations in Cincinnati, Houston, New Orleans, and
Washington DC. Following on the heels of victories for civil society at the
WTO talks in Cancun and the FTAA talks in Miami, the defeat of CAFTA could
set back the already reeling FTAA process, perhaps for good.
10. We Can Win!
Despite tremendous popular opposition to CAFTA in Central America, it
seems clear that the most effective way to defeat the agreement will be in
the US Congress. Members of Congress have been hearing a lot from their
constituents about the negative impacts of free trade. Now more than ever
it's important that you tell your congressperson to say no to CAFTA and yes
to Fair Trade!
Back to Peace Talk Index, Autumn, 2004