Spread of Free Trade Agreements Threatens Poor Countries

[Judi Lynn]

Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Spread of Free Trade Agreements Threatens Poor Countries

The US and the EU are using regional and bilateral trade deals to attain concessions they cannot get at the World Trade Organization (WTO), with serious implications for poor countries' development, said a new report published by international agency Oxfam.

Washington, D.C. - infoZine - Twenty-five developing countries have now signed free trade deals with developed countries, with more under negotiation, according to the report, Signing Away the Future. In total, there are more than 250 regional or bilateral trade agreements in force today, governing 30% of world trade. The US Congress is now considering new Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) already signed with Colombia and Peru, agreements which will harm thousands of vulnerable small farmers, block access to affordable medicines and favor foreign investors, according to Oxfam.

"Trade could be an engine to lift millions out of poverty, but these agreements are simply bad for development," said Stephanie Burgos, Trade Policy Advisor for Oxfam America. "Agreements such as the ones with Peru and Colombia will only exacerbate poverty in countries by imposing hardships on developing country farmers, making access to affordable medicines more difficult, and constraining the kinds of policies developing country governments should enact to protect their own citizens and fight poverty."

The poorest people in developing countries often bear the brunt of FTAs, as seen in the case of Mexico and the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In the first ten years after the agreement was enacted, Mexico lost 1.3 million agricultural jobs, according to the report. Manufacturing jobs were initially created but competition from cheap labor in China led to 200,000 job losses between 2001 and 2004 as firms relocated. In Peru, studies show that up to 900,000 people could be left without access to medicines if the US-Peru trade agreement goes ahead.

"Mexico has already suffered the initial impacts of the NAFTA-I saw it first hand when I met with small-scale producers of corn in Chiapas - and it will be worse if they fully liberalize the market for corn, beans and rice," said Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal who has been working with Oxfam's Make Trade Fair Campaign. "These agreements demonstrate the absence of political will to transform trade into a tool in the fight against poverty."
(snip/...)

http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/21745/

[Vincardog]

1. "These agreements demonstrate the political will to transform trade into a tool to spread poverty.

The Flat Earth Free Trade Deals are BAD FOR PEOPLE. They only benefit Corrupt Corporations and harm the Earth and all the people who live on her.

[Rydz777]

2. NAFTA

NAFTA has been a disaster for Mexico. Their farmers could not compete with cheap food imports from the USA and there was no "safety net" from the Mexican government. So they were forced to flee north to seek menial work in the USA. Ross Perot was wrong about "the great sucking sound" moving jobs from the USA to Mexico. Those jobs went to China. The sucking sound was impoverished Mexicans moving north.

[Judi Lynn]

3. It presents a hideous dilemna for the Mexican farmers who were ruined by CAFTA, NAFTA

as their family farms which had been traditional sources of income to their families going back generations were suddenly worthless, since it cost them more money to raise these crops than they could get selling them in Mexico, once the U.S. government-subsidized corn started flooding their markets.

Thrown out of their only source of income, with nowhere to find this work left in Mexico they had ONLY ONE place to go to make a living, and then they are illegal here doing work Americans don't find profitable enough to pursue, in this economy.

They are simply between worlds. What a damned tragedy. It should NEVER have happened.

[Jcrowley]

4. Free Trade

decoded means 'Investors Rights'

K&R

[Peace Patriot]

5. Here's how it the so-called "free trade" deals are like Bush and the fired prosecutors.

The third world, led by Brazil, rose up at the World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun, a few years ago, and smashed the hope of the global corporate predators for using the WTO to loot and destroy third world economies. So the bastards moved around the WTO to individual/regional "free trade" agreements, negotiated with rich elites in the target countries.

The people of the US rose up in the 2006 Congressional elections, and actually outvoted the Bushite-controlled electronic voting machines, trying to get themselves a half-decent Congress--and achieved one that, at the least, is pursuing hearings and investigations of Bushite corruption and wrong-doing. So--just after the election--the Bush Junta implemented their "Plan" for the firing of strong US attorneys--Republicans all--some of whom were going after the most corrupt Republican officeholders and lobbyists, and others who have resisted following Bushite agendas in prosecution (for instance, they were pressured to prosecute bogus "voter fraud" cases against Democrats, and resisted that pressure). The Bushites fired them, and are putting toady Bushite lawyers in their places, grooming them for judgeships that Bush will appoint before he's finished. Thus, the Bush Junta--like the global corporate predators of "free trade"-- is trying strategize around the will of the people, and good government, to protect their asses from criminal prosecution and to lay out a rightwing agenda in the courts that will last for decades.

Different modes of oppression. Same M.O. If the people resist being looted and exploited, find another way.

[Karenina]

6. Kick!

:kick: