CAFTA, Like NAFTA, Is Bad Trade Policy

[goodhue]

http://www.kucinich.us/floor_speeches/work_cafta4may.php

CAFTA, Like NAFTA, Is Bad Trade Policy
Dennis Kucinich speaking from the Floor of the House

Link to this entry in the Congressional Record
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?position=all&page=H2957&dbname=2005_record

May 4, 2005

"Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Michaud) for yielding, and thank him for his dedication to the workers of the State of Maine and to workers all over this country. All of America appreciates the leadership that you have taken on this issue. I am proud to join you at this moment.

"I remember years ago hearing Ross Perot talk about the sucking sound that would be heard once NAFTA passed. We were warned that we would be losing millions of jobs. Well, all of these prophecies have come true. We now seem to have learned nothing, because we have a new trade agreement that is being delivered to this Congress that promises to do exactly the same thing that NAFTA has done to our country.

"And that is the so-called negotiated Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement, or DR-CAFTA for short. This legislation, which I will refer to here as CAFTA, will be harmful to all of the people of the signed nations. CAFTA will benefit a few and hurt the many.

"Governments will have little or no control over the investment of foreign companies. As a matter of fact, the power of legislatures is effectively nullified once these trade agreements are passed. National development needs and the rights of citizens and local governments will come secondary to the rights of foreign investors.

"Moreover, investors will not have to comply with international labor organization standards, workers rights will be undermined, especially for women workers, for farmers, and Maquila workers. The labor rights abuses that are currently prevalent throughout the CAFTA countries will run rampant under this new legislation's weak labor provisions.

"Countries will enjoy greater tariff benefits for goods made by workers whose rights have been denied. Family farms in Central America and the United States will fall victim to CAFTA, which will threaten locally grown produce and undermine food security. Basic public goods and services, such as education, health care and water will become privatized as governments lose the flexibility to subsidize these services.

"Think about this. Privatization of education, privatization of health care. We have a private health care system, which is wrecking this country's ability to be able to meet the needs of its people. We are going to cause it to proliferate across Central America. The attempt to privatize water constitutes a challenge to human dignity. We are going to help facilitate the privatization of water with this legislation.

"Expensive brand name drugs will have expanded patents, and inexpensive generic medicines will have greater restrictions. Poor people will not have access to lifesaving pharmaceuticals, because what are these trade agreements about? They are about lifting of corporate rights and dashing the rights of the common people.

"The rules of trade, as first developed in NAFTA and now expanded in CAFTA, will increase the suffering of people in all signed countries. When CAFTA comes before Congress for a vote, I will urge my colleagues to oppose this unfair agreement. Trade between nations does not and should not have to lead to such negative consequences.

"Trade should lift up the human condition, not degrade it. Trade should celebrate workers rights, not destroy those rights. Trade should take into account environmental quality principles and appreciate the quality of our air and our water. We have new goals to set in this country with respect to trade agreements; workers rights, human rights, environmental quality principles must be included in all trade agreements. We have to challenge the prevailing consensus which delivered NAFTA to this Congress.

"We have to challenge the prevailing consensus which brought the World Trade Organization into being without any respect for the rights of national legislative bodies or for the people that we represent.

"So I want to thank the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Michaud) for leading the way on this issue. I am proud to join with you, and I look forward to continuing to work with you as we take a stand here on behalf of workers not just in this country, but all over the world."

[Desertrose]

1. Have they voted on this yet??

This is not someting that is going to help too many beyond the corporations.....

[eridani]

2. Floor speech on CAFTA

A real stemwinder!

http://www.kucinich.us/floor_speeches/work_cafta_cheap_labor27jul.php

[Desertrose]

3. "...freedom for the American worker to stand in the unemployment line..."

Speaking in opposition to H.R. 3045, Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement, Congressman Kucinich said:

"Mr. Speaker, the average hourly earnings of U.S. manufacturing workers was $16.01 in March of 2004. The average hourly wages for Honduran workers producing goods for the U.S., 90 cents.

"CAFTA is about institutionalizing cheap labor. Multinational corporations want trade agreements where they can make a profit by closing factories in the U.S. and moving jobs to places where workers have no rights and work for very low wages. Cheap labor.

"Now, I have traveled across America. And I have seen the effects of agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA: padlocked gates of abandoned factories, grass growing in parking lots of places where workers used to make steel, used to make washing machines, used to make textiles, used to make machine parts.

"Free trade has meant freedom for the American worker to stand in the unemployment line while their jobs were traded away."

cont'd at link http://www.kucinich.us/floor_speeches/work_cafta_cheap_labor27jul.php


Dennis just rocks me everytime.