On the Central American Free Trade Agreement
In the post-World War II years trade rebuilt the economies of France, Germany and Japan, and the U.S.-backed General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade helped rebuild global economic growth over half a century. The 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement created more than a million new jobs in America and our exports to Mexico more than doubled.and the Dems
Today's Democratic Party is virulently protectionist. John Kerry promised to rethink Nafta, while John Edwards boasted that "I campaigned against Nafta. I voted against the Chilean trade agreement, against the Caribbean trade agreement, and against the Singapore trade agreement." And last week the House's New Democratic Coalition came out in opposition to current trade expansion efforts in Central America because, in the words of co-chairman Ellen Tauscher of California, "trade liberalization has not lived up to [its] rhetoric."and the Sugar Industry fighting against it.
American sugar imports would depress sugar prices, they say. Well, American sugar prices today are about three times the world market's, so some price reduction would be good for Americans, just as lower gasoline prices would be.Some things never change, I guess.
1 comment:
Most free trade agreements make me nervous. Mostly because they are more complicated than what we are told and the politicians doing the most yelling are more concerned with votes than with what is good for the country.
WaPo articles place it as the Morally correct thing to do, in order to spread and nurture and stabalize democracy, but they don't say much about what its effects will be economically.
I've seen other articles speaking to the benefit of CAFTA helping to balance the trade imbalance between the US and china. Especially in textiles. Seems that clothing would be made in Central america from textiles made in the US. Everything in clothes from china are completely made there.
The deal appears also to have benefits for heavy industries in the US.
Mostly what worries me in any deal is what will it do to certain "location sensitive" industries. Meaning things like steel, which in the case of a major world upset, the US would no longer have the ability or facilities to produce. The steel industry has taken a heavy hit in the past few decades and people think that that is just fine if they can't compete with cheaper foriegn steel. Only problem is that such thinking is seriously short sited when it comes to periods of conflict. I understand that the wall street journal is a business paper, but they really have their heads tucked up a certain orifice when they start preaching about steel.
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