CAFTA

Free trade is a large part of what is ruining this country. Not only are our jobs being exported overseas but our money is as well. We are funding countries that may not have the US's best interests in mind.

They said we would only lose low paying jobs that nobody wanted. Instead we lost high paying manufacturing jobs that provided benefits for many families. We are also starting to see high tech white colalr jobs being shipped overseas as well. People that were once developing and making products for a high wage are now forced to work retail and sell those same products, made overseas and imported cheap, for a low wage and no benefits.

CAFTA will allow jobs that are heading to China to go to Latin America instead. That's the entire story. It might even be helpful since if people in those countries want something from overseas, they might buy from the US instead of the Pacific Rim. It is really foolish to think that a company will close down their factories in the US and go to the Dominican Republic because of this bill. If they were minded to do that, there are already plenty of opportunities in numerous countries. These countries provide drop-in-place manufacturing modules and can churn out the junk we want without thinking twice. I know a guy who toured Chinese facilities. He tells stories of workers who give themselves American team names, have American productivity numbers in front of them everyday and really, really want our jobs. If we want to win, we need to stop complaining about free trade and start competing. It doesn't matter if the field is not level, the wages are not the same, the labor laws are different, etc. We have to go full out. When we ask workers here to step up and do more, they whine like the world was falling. Our maintenance manager has the best response I have ever heard. "When they tell you the plant is closing in three months, you will do anything, promise anything, agree to any job change to keep your job. And it will be too late." We have to step up now.

Unions should be demanding continuing education for employees so that they can be more productive than their overseas rivals. If they get paid 1/6 what an American worker gets paid, but the American is 10 times more productive, the jobs are staying here. They should demand investment in productivity and insist that workers have the opportunity to take on more and more challenging work. Insisting on rules that make people less productive is just packaging up the jobs for people in other countries.

There are areas where the US is winning. Look at cars. Toyota and Honda pay more than GM and make better products. But those workers are some of the most productive in the world. Free trade will eventually make us more wealthy and use the world's resources more efficiently, so I think CAFTA is a good thing. We just have to be ready to take the jobs fight to the other guy.

How will free trade make us more wealthy? Instead of producing our own products and shipping the excess overseas to sell, we have to import the same products we used to produce ourselves. We send our money over to china and latin america instead of reinvesting in our own economy. The idea that free trade works is ludicrous.

You are right that the playing field is not even. But, blaming it on complaining workers is nonsense. I know plenty of people who would kill to have their old manufacturing job back. Does the American public need to wake up and see the wrting on the wall? Probably. But instead of drafting more laws to make competion even harder why not end the free trade experiment and return to the days of trade surpluses?

Not an experiment


Free trade is not an "experiment", it is a natural product of people following their self interest. Why don't people "buy American"? Because for many items, it is more expensive. Sometimes, people will pay more for better quality, but often not. You face this question every single day. Would you pay 25% more for the same job because the person doing it was an American? A few people might, but most won't. The American won't have a job soon enough. In order for the American to compete, he needs to figure out how to do the job faster, better, more efficiently. You know that some Europeans complain about the US also. We work too hard, take too few vacations, don't have sufficient benefits, aren't looking out for global warming, etc. We're not very sympathetic to those arguments when we take jobs from the Europe. Emerging nations aren't sympathetic to our concerns either.

Protectionism only means that our prices skyrocket and our standard of living declines. When other countries engage in protectionism in return, they don't buy our products and we lose jobs as well. The way to maximize wealth is to let each country do what they do best and trade those products freely. We need to step up and compete instead of complaining about how unfair the world is. That's not just manufacturing workers, it's everyone. Our current success (in the US) is directly related to our willingness to compete. If we shy away from that and try to hide behind barriers, we lose. Maybe not next week, but in the long term, we lose.

Re: Not an experiment


It is an experiment, and a failed one at that.

We used to run trade surpluses. Now we run trade deficits at over $600 billion. We used to produce nearly everything we consumed with one-third of labor in manufacturing. Now plants and factories are being shut down and shipped overseas and only 11 percent of our labor is in manufacturing.

Lincoln once said "Give us a protective tariff and we shall have the greatest country on the earth."

You ask why people don't buy american? Because due to the labor laws and minumum wage laws in effect we can not stay competitive with countries with out them. It is more expensive to buy american because we have eliminated tarfiffs (which used to be a large source of income for federal spending... instead we get taxed now) and allowed companies to ship jobs overseas. You say we need to do the job " faster, better, more efficiently" but we will never be able to compete with a country that pays it's workers $2 a day... it will never happen.




we do work to hard already trying to compete... you want us to work harder. Exactly what jobs are we taking from Europe?





If that is your idea of "prices skyrocketing and our standard of living declining"... sign me up. In order to be able to compete we need to even the playing feild and make it possible for American comanies to employ workers here. Tariffs are a good start and eliminating trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA should quickly follow.

The worst thing about CAFTA passing was that, at first, it didn't. But Tom DeLay broke the rules and scrambled to get more votes, AFTER time had expired.

He got the results he wanted -- the bill barely passed.

The scumbag should be shot.

Once America's standard of living drops to the level of the third world, our workers will have no trouble competing with Latin American labor, and boy will we prosper then!

Don't imagine that anyone here noticed the glaring omission of one small Central American country in the CAFTA agreement? Belize. I have been doing research on that country and would be interested if anyone has heard anything specific.

The only people we used to have to compete with lived in Europe. There was no significant manufacturing in most of the world. Of course we had a trade surplus since we were almost the only game in town with abundant resources and cheap labor with little in the way of labor laws.



Tariffs do not make US goods cheaper, they make foriegn goods more expensive. That means you pay more. It's that simple. Once you tarriff the foreign goods out of competition, you don't get the taxes either.

There is a fairly common and ancient economics analogy that explains why free trade works to everyone's advantage. You have two countries, both that produce wool and wine. Country A can produce both cheaper than country B. The land can either be used for grapes or grazing, so it is somewhat interchangable. Depending on the manufacturing advantage A has over B for each product, there is a better way than each manufacturing for their own needs. A lets B manufacture for them in the area where they are closest in cost. A manufactures for B where the cost differential is highest. The result is that both save money. That is why free trade works and that is what is happening in the US job market. Jobs that others can do as well as we can are being sent out and being replaced with jobs that we excel at. Unemployment is not at 50% in this country. All those jobs that are leaving are being replaced. The overall wealth of this country is growing. If you start a protectionist experiment, you put all of that at risk.


Every single item we export to Europe is a European job we've taken. Heavy machinery, software, banking, fiber optics, percision machinery, microchips, cars, etc. You want a big trade surplus? Why aren't all these countries going to put tariffs on our goods to save their jobs?



We already to compete with that and win. Foriegn companies are building plants in the US in industries like cars. Fuji has a campus with nine plants in Greenwood, SC and they are expanding. Why are they here if we can't compete with $2/day? There are a lot more variables than hourly salary and a lot of those favor the US and other more developed countries.



Yes, the industrial revolution was a wonderous thing, but why are you discussing it in terms of free trade? In a world where transporting goods across the seas cost a fortune, I doubt you needed much in the way of tariffs anyway. I notice that Pat doesn't discuss the Great Depression very much. Protectionism played a nice role there.

CAFTA is not about "free trade", as alleged by the politically controlled big media. It’s about a “managed trade” situation in which Congress, the people’s elected representatives, no longer manages and regulates Americas’ Commerce with foreign nations as intended by our founding fathers and mandated by our written Constitution!

CAFTA is about a panel, un-elected by the American people, the majority of whom are foreigners, making decisions using their majority vote concerning trade policy for America to follow, and is an extension of the NAFTA.

To fully understand what CAFTA is about, one must first understand the fundamentals of the NAFTA. You can start learning by reading FAST TRACK, WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW




Every member of Congress which voted for CAFTA ought to be viewed as a domestic enemy of our written constitution because they have sold out to internationals who have no allegiance to the United States or any nation. CAFTA is designed to allow internationalists to live off and profit from the productivity of every nation involved in CAFTA, and do so by erasing the national borders of nations, and then striking down various national laws adopted by the people of various nations which were intentionally designed by them for their own domestic general welfare and interests.


JWK

We have given you a Republic, if you can keep it! ____B F

Free trade will always hurt certain special interests. Forest owners in a country with scarce wood resources will logically wish to maintain tarrifs on wood and wood derivatives. This is what we are seeing in the opposition to CAFTA. Domestic holders of a resource which is scarce domestically but plentifull in foreign markets, and which will likely depreciate given free trade, seek tarrifs on the trade of it and its derivatives. The resource I am reffering to is, of course, labour.

NAFTA and CAFTA are designed to benefit big business and no one else. Business has always used cheaper foreign labor to undercut the wages of American labor; the globalization of the world economies has simply meant that businesses no longer have to import the cheaper labor--they just move production to the cheap labor (and take advantage of the lack of safety and environmental regulations while they're at it). This, however, hasn't been translating into cheaper prices for consumers. Business increases it profit while consumers continue to pay a premium and the standard of living for tens of millions of Americans is substantially decreased.

Meanwhile stocks appreciate faster, spurring additional investment, and the poorer countries are industrialized.

Both stockholders and foreign workers benefit, only domestic workers are disadvantaged.

CAFTA: Amnesty for Trade Cheats

Congressman Charles Norwood, June 17, 2005

Georgia chicken farmers are trying to sell poultry in Central America under a 160% import tariff, while Central American farmers sell their chicken in America tariff-free. Any five-year old will tell you that's cheating. So what are we going to do about it?

The global trade crowd says we ought to reward these "competitors" by offering them the chance to cheat us on textiles and sugar, by approving the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA. In return, they agree to stop cheating us on chickens after another 18 years during which they put our poultry industry out-of-business. Amnesty for trade cheats, just like the same crowd's proposals on amnesty for illegal aliens.

"Let's open foreign markets to American goods". That battle cry has been the mantra of the globalists for the past decade. It was their whole rationale for pushing the United States - against public opinion - away from America's historically proven bilateral trade agreement system.

We enjoyed our last trade surplus - $12.4 billion - in 1975. Decades of government regulation, trade union demands, and the unfair trade policies of international competitors like Japan were finally taking their toll. By 1994, the United States was posting consistent trade deficits, recording a $98 billion dollar deficit.

That brought the globalists into play, negotiating multi-nation "mega deals" in which other countries were allowed to ship either low-tariff or completely tariff-free goods into the United States, while we agreed to continued tariffs on our goods to their countries, like the chicken-cheating deal we agreed to as part of the Caribbean Basin Initiative.

The argument then and now for this economic stupidity is the same. We lose some jobs and markets, but overall, our exports will increase, as foreign countries that currently protect their markets through high tariffs agree to lower them on some things - as long as we agree to lower ours more, or eliminate them entirely.

The first, the granddaddy of all the giveaways, passed Congress in 1994 - the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA. Mexico and Canada were our largest trading partners, and this deal would further "open their markets to American goods."

In 1994, we still had a $1.3 billion trade surplus with Mexico. Today, as a direct result of NAFTA, we have a $45 billion trade deficit. In 1994, we had a $14 billion trade deficit with Canada. Today, we have a $66.5 billion deficit.

But to the globalists, this is all good. For while we lost good paying manufacturing jobs and markets, U.S. exports did in fact increase. Exports to Mexico jumped from $51 billion in 1994 to $111 billion in 2004. Exports to Canada grew from $114 billion in 1994 to $190 billion in 2004.

It's just that imports grew a lot faster than exports. So while our sales to Mexico grew 118%, our purchases grew 215%. Sales to Canada went up 66%; imports from Canada grew 100%.

The undeniable end result is a net loss of dollars and jobs to Americans. A few people gained; the majority lost.

NAFTA alone is bad enough, but the globalists have piled one bad trade deal on top of the next ever since. Congress approved U.S. membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, and the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act and the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act in 2000.

But that still wasn't enough. We still needed to "open more markets to American goods."

So we approved Permanent Normal Trade Relations to Communist China in 2000, in spite of the fact we knew they used slave labor in their Red Army-owned factories.

The result? The percentages weren't as bad as Mexico and Canada due to the fact we sold little to China to begin with. But the result in real dollars is appalling. Between 2000 and 2004, U.S. exports to China grew $18 billion; U.S. imports shot up $97 billion. We ended with a net loss of $162 billion for 2004 alone.

China further rewarded our trust by passing a new law giving advance approval for the Red Army to invade our ally Taiwan.

Then we gave the President Fast Track Trading Authority in 2002 to get us into these messes more quickly in the future. No point dragging our feet down the road to ruin. That $98 billion trade deficit in 1994 has now exploded to $618 billion last year, thanks to these policies.

The essence of stupidity is defined in those who simply cannot learn from experience.

In spite of these glaringly failed trade policies costing 3 million American manufacturing jobs, now the precise same special interest lobbyists are demanding we pass CAFTA, "to open markets to American goods."

Like all the other give-way deals, this one attempts to divide and conquer U.S. business interests. Our farmers are told this will finally eliminate those unfair tariffs against our farm products, while failing to tell them this only occurs after another 18 years of tariffs against their products, which will likely put them out of business. Our textile folks are told this won't hurt jobs, because all the jobs that could be hurt are already lost. The only ones who will lose business is the sugar industry, so we ought to sacrifice them so the others can gain - which they won't.

It's the same argument as every other trade deal. We were told we would lose textile jobs to Mexico under NAFTA, but other industries would prosper, so to heck with those backward textile folks.

The European Union then used the WTO deal to threaten our agriculture industry with tariffs and boycotts unless we sacrificed our airliner production or changed our internal tax laws.

This past summer, the Red Chinese threatened our sawmills with a boycott unless we agreed not to enforce our dumping laws against their illegal furniture exports. They very shrewdly attempted to pit our timber industry against our furniture manufacturers.

And just in case you're a cotton farmer thinking CAFTA's okay because you'll do okay - wrong, you're next.

Even now the Bush Administration is moving to gut our cotton production programs to satisfy the demands of Brazil. Brazil is threatening to steal the patents of our pharmaceutical, movie, music, and computer industries unless we agree to allow Brazilian cotton to undermine U.S. cotton production. So we have the drug, computer, and entertainment companies pitted against our cotton farmers.

Every new trade deal we pass sacrifices another U.S. industry, and more U.S. jobs, to satisfy the globalists, who care nothing for the economic well-being of America or any other nation, as long as they make their percentage off these bad deals.

This time, let's consider an alternative. Instead of CAFTA, how about a new law that places a 160% tariff against CAFTA nation imports unless they remove their tariff against our farmers? If it ends trade with CAFTA nations, they are hurt more than us. We have big trade deficits with CAFTA countries that would be eliminated in the process.

If Brazil can't live with our cotton program, then we shouldn't live with Brazilian imports. That will free up another $7.2 billion in trade deficit we ran up last year.

Fear of trade wars? There is obviously no fear among our competitors, as they threaten industry-after-industry here in the U.S with impunity.

Fear of alienating these Central American countries? We can't do much worse than at present. Here's how often they voted against our positions at the United Nation's last year: Honduras, 76%; Guatemala, 76%; Nicaragua, 74%; El Salvador, 76%; Panama, 77%. All while taking millions in American foreign aid, and taxing our goods at 160% while we let them ship here duty-free. A little alienation from this crowd might do us some good.

CAFTA is just one more in an unbroken chain of bad trade deals that sacrifice our industries, markets, and jobs, with a deceitful promise that other industries will prosper as a result. Then we sacrifice those industries in the very next deal.

It's time for smart and fair U.S. trade policies. A pre-requisite for any such policies is that they benefit the vast majority of Americans, at the unfair expense of no one.

CAFTA fails that test on all counts. And if it passes, just remember - you're next.

source

We'll let the foreign workers fend for themselves; the U.S. Government's primary duty is to look after the interests of its citizens. Considering that only about half of Americans own stock or mutual funds, and that about 80% of stock is owned by the wealthiest 10% of the population (with over 40% being owned by the wealthiest 1%), the number of stockholders who actually realize a net benefit from the impoverishment of American workers would seem to be quite small. Further, we must consider that the jobs being shipped out are among the few decent paying jobs for working class people. The loss of these jobs, in addition to directly lowering the standards of living for the workers who are now forced to take employment at a fraction of their previous wages, also means major economic upheaval for the communities in which these jobs had been located; not only are millions of workers impoverished directly, but millions more find themselves either impoverished because their customer base is now gone or living in communities with steadily crumbling infrastructure, rapidly declining property values, and shrinking tax bases.

So the question is why does the government favor the economic advancement of one relatively small group of Americans while setting the stage for the impoverishment or economic decline of far more Americans? (This is, of course, a rhetorical question--they're listening to the group with the money.)

the plant will close anyway.

and when it does, the workers will be told to "re-train".

just like they were told 10 or 15 years ago. "sorry, ed. the assembly line is being shut down. you should re-train for a more current job, like computer programmer or something.."

so ed goes back to school, while millie supports ed, herself and the 2.3 children on the paycheck earned as a greeter at wal-mart.

after a few years, ed has gotten a degree in programming and hits the market. along with all of the other former skilled, now redundents who were told to re-train.

they apply, they interview, and the cheapest bid wins out... because "times are hard". they are happy just to have a job. they did anything, made any change.

now, ed has finally gotten to the point where the high interest loan that paid for re-training is paid off and there's finally a couple of extra bucks to actually enjoy life again.

come monday, ed rolls into the office parking lot. a spring in his step and a whistle on his lips. and why not ? he's risen above adversity, overcome the winds of fate and has metamorphisized from factory worker to skilled computer programmer. his old maintainence manager sure was right !

as he settles into his cubicle and ponders the best and fastest (because time is money and it's my responsiblity to help increase profitability!) way to solve the problem of a fractious logarithm that's holding up production, he begins to click through the morning's email.

after deleting a couple of the usual e-ads for mortgages, dvd copy software, porn and boner pills, he clicks on a message subjected, "to all of our valued employees". which read;

"dear valued employees.

due to the degenerative effect free trade has had on our corporation, this unit will be shut down the end of this week. the work will be taken up and continued by The Brahmin Corporation of New Delhi, India.

we regret any inconvenience that this may cause you. since this trend is likely to continue, may we suggest that you consider re-training.

sincerely; The Management "

And the cycle continues. Good post DTOM.

My point is that we need to step up now, not when the plant is about to close. The idea that American workers can not compete with "cheap foreign labor" is just wrong. American workers are typically well educated and industrious. Unfortunately, in many industries we have built systems where workers are limited in what they can do. After getting trained in these systems, we resist change. We limit our own productivity. If you find you are sitting on your butt at work with nothing to do, you are not being productive and you are putting your job on the line. If you are getting all the work done and still have spare time, ask for more work. Learn a new skill if you have to. Americans who do this are competing successfully every day.

A couple of questions about the numerous comments above:

1) Do protective tarriffs cause American products to cost less?
2) Is there any reason to improve quality or reduce costs if you have a protected US market?
3) Who reaps the benefits of cost reduction in a protected market?
4) Will the US consumer pay more for items if protective tarriffs are in place?
5) Has the US economy lost jobs overall over the last couple of decades?
6) Has the overall standard of living in the US risen or declined in the last couple of decades?

My answers:
1) Tariffs don't impact the manufacturing costs of US products at all. If tariffs reduce imports, then the taxes lost from that reduction will outweigh those received from the tariffs. If the purpose of the tariffs are to eliminate imports, then overall tax receipts are lower and the government must tax Americans or US industries to recover the shortfall. Note that any price increase in foreign goods will be passed to consumers, so any tariff comes out of our pockets.
2) There is limited competition, so there is limited need to drive down costs or improve quality. There is still a driver if you want to export.
3) Mangagement reaps all improvements in costs in a protected market. In an openly competitive market, market forces drive lower prices, so the consumer benefits. An earlier posts claims that management reaps all the benefits of cost reduction. Tell that to the companies trying to sell to Wal-Mart. WM continuously pounds their suppliers to get them lower prices which they then pass on to their customers so that they can compete with the Targets and K Marts of the world. This doesn't happen in a protected market. Management keeps any gains.
4) Yes, in a big way.
5) No, rather the US economy has created MILLIONS of jobs. Lost millions of manufacturing jobs, yes. Made all of those back plus interest, yes. Remember the seventies when unemployment was at more than 10%? Is that where you want to go back to?
6) The standard of living in the US has never been higher. You can rant about the evils of free trade all day, but you can't ignore that simple fact. You can also trot out truly tragic tales of the American dream ended by job loss. I don't deny they are out there. But the many stories of success of everyday folks who achieve their dreams are out there too. I don't mean the Bill Gates of the world. I'm talking everyday people who retire with a nice little nest egg and get to spend the next fifteen years enjoying their grandchildren. I know lots of them, and I bet you do too.

No, and neither does 'free trade.'


Break up the near monopolies and trusts and there'll be plenty of domestic competition to help drive down costs.


The same people who reap the benefits of reduced labor costs under 'free trade' (and it ain't the consumers).


Probably, but the benefits in enhanced tax bases locally and nationally would likely outweigh the increased prices at the marketplace.


Not if you're counting all those wonderful minimum-wage jobs in the service industry, but we have suffered a net loss in good paying jobs relative to the size of the workforce.


That all depends on whose defining what constitutes a good standard of living. People have more stuff and they're living longer. However, employed people have less time for recreation and family. Consider that just a few decades ago the typical family needed only one income earner. A family of four could have a decent home, vehicle, and generally be supported on that one income. In many cases, working class families could even afford to send their children to college without putting themselves or their children in debt. Most families today have (and need) two full time income earners and their children's educations will most likely be financed by loans.