Stop the
CAFTA and AFTA Trade Agreements
By Sean Garcia
April 2005: The United States is currently negotiating two regional trade
agreements with Latin America, the Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA)
and the Andean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA). The two agreements are at different
stages of the negotiation and approval processes but many of the concerns with
the text of the agreements are the same.
Both agreements are largely based on the North American Free Trade Agreement
which, 11 years after its inception, has failed to provide much of the development
and other benefits that it touted at the beginning. Overall, the agreement has
been most harmful to the rural population of Mexico. Despite the many failures
of NAFTA, the original text was left largely unchanged when used to draft both
AFTA and CAFTA, which will inevitably lead to similar failures, and is some cases,
even graver consequences because of the considerable inequalities between the
United States and the Latin American countries involved.
Despite knowledge that the agricultural chapter as well as those dealing with
labor, intellectual property, environment, and investment are insufficient and
weak, no measures have been taken to amend the language according to civil society
suggestions or to implement adequate precautionary measures in anticipation of
negative impacts from the agreements. Furthermore, the free trade agreements
will terminate any standards and enforcement mechanisms that exist under the
Generalized System of Preferences, the Caribbean Basin Initiative, or the Andean
Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA), among others.
The agricultural provisions of the trade agreements are likely to be the most
detrimental due to the far-reaching consequences for the rural sector. Many of
the products that would be imported into the Latin American countries from the
U.S. are staple crops, foods that small rural farmers rely on for their basic
survival. Flooding the Latin American markets with cheaper U.S. goods will inevitably
lead to a significant loss of food and job security. As with Mexico, this will
lead to urban migration, and often, emigration to the United States. A recent
report from the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture concluded that:
"[If] Colombia [does not take] adequate measures in defense and support
of agricultural producers, rural problems could worse and many of its inhabitants
would have no more than three options: migration to the cities or to other countries
(especially the U.S.), working in drug cultivation zones, or affiliating with
illegal armed groups.1
The lack of public participation is another overarching problem that has led
to ongoing protest and has unified many sectors in their disapproval of the trade
agreements. The opinions and concerns of civil society members, those who will
be most affected by the negative impact of the trade agreements, were not formally
taken into account or incorporated into the language of the agreement texts.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) held a series of public
meetings in Central America that solely served to inform civil society of CAFTA's
purpose, and to discuss the pros and cons of NAFTA. A substantive mechanism for
participation was severely lacking.
The DR-CAFTA negotiation rounds ended in December of 2003. Once the treaty
was signed by all participating countries in May of 2004 (except the Dominican
Republic which did not sign until August), the text was closed to further negotiation
and could no longer be amended due to fast-track regulations in the United States.
Thus far, the agreement has been ratified in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.
Protests, and in some cases riots ensued in these three countries as CAFTA was
brought to a vote under less than standard circumstances. In El Salvador, the
agreement was passed on December 17, 2004 at 3 a.m. after a special plenary session
of the congress was convened in order to avoid confrontation with civil society
groups. The two congressional committees who had been charged with the responsibility
to research and report on the expected impact of the free trade agreement were
not permitted to present their findings.2
The approval of the agreement was met with the most severe disapproval and
protest in Guatemala, starting the week of March 7, 2005. Days before the final
vote, a social movement mobilized thousands of citizens representing a broad
coalition of farmers, teachers, unions, and indigenous groups. To speed up the
process in Guatemala, a state of "national emergency" was declared
in order to bypass several of the preliminary votes and discussion and allow
for a single up or down vote on the agreement.3 The
government failed to properly address the concerns of the protesters in the days
before the vote, and police responded to the protests following the vote with
repression, illegal detentions and excessive amounts of tear gas. Two people
were shot and killed in the department of Huehuetenango, and many others were
wounded in demonstrations across the country.
In the U.S., the DR-CAFTA has yet to come up for formal discussion in the
Congress. It is widely assumed that the Bush Administration will not bring the
agreement to a vote until they are sure of a victory. While the U.S. Trade Representative
has been campaigning extensively in the hopes of a late-May vote, it is more
likely that the DR-CAFTA will not be voted on until late summer or fall of this
year. Representative Collin Peterson, D-MN, stated at a National Farmers Union
event that he believes that the agreement would lose in the House by 40 to 50
votes.4 It is also important
to note that, according to a recent poll conducted by the non-governmental organization,
Americans for Fair Trade, the majority of voters oppose CAFTA regardless of their
political affiliation. Democrats oppose it 53 to 31 % and Republicans, 47 to
37%.5
The AFTA is currently in the 8th round of negotiations in Washington, DC,
where they will need to address the remaining discrepancies with regard to investment
and services, as well as intellectual property. This round will be followed by
one more in Lima, Peru to take place in June of this year. The U.S. has recently
threatened to remove Peru from the negotiations due to disagreements over agricultural
protection issues and to remove Ecuador because of its labor rights standards.
These issues will have to be resolved quickly if negotiations are to close by
late summer.
The underlying problem with the free trade agreements is that they continue
to be touted as vehicles for development when they are, in fact, business deals.
Salvadoran economist Alexander Segovia said, "It's a model that hasn't produced
what it was supposed to — more equality and economic growth*If CAFTA is
allowed to stand alone, without a complementary set of strong development policies,
it will have more negative than positive effects — both economically and
politically."6 |
