Renegotiate NAFTA!

Leading Democrats including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi publicly warned President Bush not to submit the Colombia free trade agreement to Capitol Hill without a "Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) package"(Measures to assist American workers pushed out by an influx of imports.) as well as evidence that Colombia had made real progress in cracking down on violence against labor organizers. Nonetheless, President Bush defied congress, ignored Pelosi's warning and decided to send the trade bill to congress anyway.  

The scope of US-Colombia bilateral FTA in brief are the following:

1. The agreement would make the US-Colombia FTA the largest bilateral trade deal in the Western hemisphere since the inception of NAFTA

2. The agreement provides Colombia with duty-free access to the US markets which is 104 times larger than those of Colombia, while the US maintains duty-free imports of grains, cotton and soybeans

3. The agreement follows a similar model as used in NAFTA and CAFTA, ensuring the status-quo

4. It does not address fixing problems with current US trade policy that blatantly accepts foreign governments' use of unfair tactics, such as currency manipulation and capital control

5. The agreement largely reflects narrow interests of a few multinational corporations (MNC) local and abroad, with little interest in plight of workers as opposed to the bottom line

In the US, Pennsylvania alone witnessed 1,583 plants, offices and warehouses closing down due to foreign competitive pressures while Colombian workers earn an average of 400~600,000 Colombian Pesos monthly (roughly 200~300 US dollars) for their labor. The Bush administration would rather not deal with these inequities and differences in levels of development, but instead relies on the abstract rhetoric of its free market ideology to defend is trade policies.

In response to President Bush's unilateral action attempting to force-feed the bill, Congress responded by removing CAFTA from the 'fast-tack' process. The bill is now tied up in Congress, as Congressional Democrats are holding the bill hostage for an acceptable TAA bill. Many observers believe the bill is dead, but President Bush could revive the bill by accepting a democratic TAA legislation. For more information, visit http://www.citizenstrade.org/cfta.php#talkpoints.