MORE NAFTA,BOYS ?
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Mike
Well-known member
Those numbers are staggering.
I think it was agman that said, "a rising tide lifts all ships".
I'll be damned if I ain't tired of lifting.
I think it was agman that said, "a rising tide lifts all ships".
I'll be damned if I ain't tired of lifting.
If our best trade balance is with Mexico what does that say about the whole trade picture? A result of all this is that our dollar is so worthless that our foreign trading partners are investing in realestate and housing in order to get any value out of them. Don't be surprised if your neighbporing ranchers soon have yellow skin.
Kato
Well-known member
Doesn't look like Mexico's too happy either. This is from a progress report written in 1995 by Weekly News Update on the Americas. We can assume things have escalated since then.
And we think WE have problems? :? :? :? :? At least our children are not starving.
As much as OT and all would like to think the U.S. is the only one on the losing end of this, it just ain't so. When Canada signed on it was in the perhaps naieve expectation that NAFTA would put an end to the neverending trade disputes and legal challenges to trade that we lived with up to then. I guess we all know how well that worked, didn't we?? :roll: :roll: :wink:
And we think WE have problems? :? :? :? :? At least our children are not starving.
As much as OT and all would like to think the U.S. is the only one on the losing end of this, it just ain't so. When Canada signed on it was in the perhaps naieve expectation that NAFTA would put an end to the neverending trade disputes and legal challenges to trade that we lived with up to then. I guess we all know how well that worked, didn't we?? :roll: :roll: :wink:
rkaiser
Well-known member
I would like to see a graph showing growth and expansion of multinational companies since NAFTA. If everyone is loosing - someone has to gain. I think we all know where the gains went.
mwj
Well-known member
QUESTION said:
Oct. 1993 makes it closer to 15 years old!!!!!!! :???:
Forecasts are not alway going to come true, using facts of what happened last year would give an accurate representation of what is going on instead of predictions from the past or predictions of the future. Just look at the prediction of how long US troops would be in Iraq. Kina makes a case for using real numbers. But go on keep on spreading your disimformation. :roll:
QUESTION said:
By gawd,I think you are finally gettin it,the posted charts compare corporate bought forecasts to reality .
nafta has been like a bad storm to the US cattle man,the only winners were the folks you partner with.........remember the cute jingles ? farm to fork ? Ranch to rail
good luck
boy oh boy, created all them wonderful jobs the american people were told it would.... 77 percent.... we only lost 147 percent in mnfg....
http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/news_item.asp?nid=2768559
The tail end of Free Trade and the impact of NAFTA on US manufacturing
Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) research associate Jacob Hill writes: In this, the fourteenth year of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), it is of the utmost importance -- in terms of its continued application in the future -- to look back and examine the economic impact of free trade on the US and Mexico over the last decade and a half.
A major component of the exercise will be NAFTA's impact on the proliferation of the maquiladora sector, which repeatedly has resulted in a precipitous drop in manufacturing jobs in the US and Mexico as well as a reliable precedence for the weakening of labor standards in much of the third world.
Human Rights Abuses in Mexican Manufacturing
One of the most drastic and disturbing results of NAFTA has been a boom in the Mexican maquiladora sector. In the US and the developed world, these manufacturing units would deservedly be known as sweatshops. The maquiladoras operate within Latin America because of the abundance of cheap labor and the poor conditions being tolerated. Due to the removal of protective tariffs by free trade pacts, raw components are imported to the maquiladoras without being taxed. Additionally, the machinery involved in the maquiladora process is also allowed to enter Mexico tariff-free under NAFTA's terms.
Then, Mexican laborers work to turn the raw goods into finished products, adding value to the goods. The end products are then exported to developed nations, with minimal tax levied that is based only on the value added during production.
Although one could argue that within the capitalist model, Mexico's comparative advantage would be its inexpensive labor, the human rights abuses often associated with the maquiladora process thus bring with them a heavy economic disadvantage.
The sweatshop problem has been well known since the inception of NAFTA. In 1995, just a year after the implementation of the free trade agreement, The New York Times reported on the exploitation of Mexican young girls by the maquiladoras. US companies, often working through third parties, pay children as young as 14 years of age wages under 40 cents per hour. Maquiladoras located within walled and barbed wired free trade zones are not only exempt from import taxes, but are also exempt from state and local imposts for up to 10 years.
Once a corporation structure is set up as a free trade zone and secures a manufacturing contract with a large multinational company, the owner of the facility maximizes profits by informally sanctioning a number of abuses, including offering low wages, tolerating dismal safety standards, refusing to provide health benefits and insisting upon unpaid overtime.
One of the primary problems with the current system of production is that the prevailing economic conditions in the countries housing the maquiladoras are so marginal that the only jobs available are in such sweatshops. For instance, since the passage of NAFTA, over one million Mexican corn farmers have lost their jobs. With such high rates of unemployment, workers are forced to either leave their homes and villages to migrate to more prosperous countries (hence the spike in illegal immigration to the US since the establishment of NAFTA and other bilateral Latin American free trade agreements) or take low-paying jobs featuring a range of abuses in the maquiladoras.
Many of the maquiladora workers come from the rural areas of Mexico which, according to the World Bank, have experienced "stagnation of growth, lack of competitiveness in the international market, [and] an increase in poverty" since the advent of NAFTA.
As a result, sweatshop workers possess almost no leverage to negotiate improved labor rights. Refusing to work overtime, taking breaks (in spite of the fact that they are required by un-enforced law), illness, visits to the doctor, and pregnancy rests have all been recorded as reasons for job terminations in the maquiladora sector. There also have been instances of free trade zone managers forcing workers under their jurisdiction to knowingly deceive representatives of governmental labor monitoring groups. Nevertheless, everyday realities frequently force workers to work under these abhorrent conditions, as jobs are scarce and employees are extremely expendable. Tens of thousands of other impoverished laborers are fully prepared to eagerly occupy any jobs vacated by workers seeking greater labor and human rights or economic benefits.
Faux Worker Protection
While under NAFTA's side agreements, there are mechanisms in place to protect workers, they are more often than not simply facades. Company unions may be required by free trade zone managers in order to allow such corporations to claim that they are compliant with regulations allowing for union representation, these, in reality, are entirely management-controlled and allow only minor shifts in policy, acting more as a "smoke and mirrors" show than an actual vehicle for enlightened worker protection.
Additionally, some Latin American countries actually have very strong workers' rights guarantees. Some analysts argue that Nicaragua's labor rights laws, for example, are actually stronger than those in effect in the US, but they are rarely enforced. The problem with this situation arises when one contrasts the advantages of free trade zones for the countries in question with the disadvantages for both labor and the national economies that are involved.
As mentioned above, countless steps are being taken to ensure that labor costs in the maquiladoras are kept as low as possible. The philosophy of management is that any intervention by the authorities in favor of the workers would only cost the corporations more money; increases in safety monitoring, healthcare, or augmented wages are all expensive propositions.
If the governments of Latin America were to press free trade zone operators to implement these labor standard changes as an act of common equity, foreign-owned maquiladoras would most likely either leave the Americas altogether in favor of lower cost locations in Asia, or take the matter before a NAFTA dispute panel. Thus, it is not necessarily in the interest of regional governments to enforce those labor standards on the books, because they can be blackmailed with the threat that any attempt to enforce them would most likely be met with an eventual pullout of foreign investment from the country. This would not only devastate the effected nations' economies, but would also leave those presently working in the maquiladoras unemployed, with few remaining options at hand.
Proliferation of Maquiladoras
According to the Economic and Financial Review, there is a direct correlation between the spread of the maquiladora industry and the inauguration of NAFTA. During the first six years after the signing of the trade pact (1994-2000), there was a 110% growth in the Mexican sweatshop industry.
Besides the human rights abuses inherent in the operation of the maquiladoras, the primary problem with this category of growth is that it is not economically sustainable.
According to Fidel Aroche, in his article "Vertical Integration and Comparative Advantages," although the manufacturing sector in Mexico has grown, the processes in place will not ensure long-term growth for Mexico because the industry is based on imported inputs with hardly any existing connection to the rest of the country's productive machinery. Thus, the majority of the growth is in unsustainable industries based on the exploitation of labor and the "race to the bottom" among wages in developing nations.
According to a 2006 report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the maquiladora industry is "stuck in a trap of low productivity growth, reduced skills, and sustained by low wages." Moreover, for better or for worse, Mexico is losing the "race to the bottom." The aforementioned report goes on to state that, in fact, "the number of maquiladora companies has diminished since 2000, which is the result of various companies leaving the country to go to other countries with wages even lower than those in Mexico."
Manufacturing in the US.
There is no denying the fact that NAFTA has generated an impressive net growth regarding exports from the US. Since the pact's inception, according to the EPI, U.S. outflows to Mexico have increased 114% and exports to Canada have risen 60%. On the other hand, imports from Mexico to the US have risen by 274%, while those from Canada have grown by 90%. As a result, the US' combined $20.6 billion trade deficit to Mexico and Canada in 1993 has ballooned in the post-NAFTA era by 538% to $110.6 billion in 2004 (figures provided in inflation-adjusted 1996 dollars by the EPI). This deficit is a signal of a growing US dependence on the health of external economies and has affected several of the nation's key historic industries.
According to David Raney of the Alliance for Responsible Trade, the five major industrial groups which produce the US' most important exports (chemicals, plastics, electrical machinery and equipment, transportation equipment, and computers/electronic equipment) now have negative trade balances, which have increased at a staggering rate since NAFTA's ordination.
There is a direct correlation between the growth of the US' trade deficit and the rise in unemployment throughout the US manufacturing sector over the last 13 years
According to international trade and macroeconomics expert Dr. L. Josh Bivins, growing trade deficits are responsible for 34 to 58% of the decline in manufacturing unemployment. When one looks at the whole picture, NAFTA is responsible for a 77% increase in jobs supported by domestic exports and a 147% increase in jobs displaced by imports.
During the first 10 years of NAFTA, 942,459 jobs were created in the US by the agreement, but 1,956,750 jobs have been nullified by it, resulting in an overall net loss of more than 1,000,000 jobs.
A report by Public Citizen found that workers in the US who have lost high-wage jobs with benefits in the manufacturing sector have only been able to find "new work in service sector positions that typically pay 23-77% less than their previous wages and offer few or no benefits."
Among the hardest hit in the US have been Latino workers. According to the report by the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, 47% of the total number of workers who received federal assistance under a program for workers certified as having lost jobs in 1999 as a direct result of NAFTA, were Latino.
In addition to harming US workers by causing job losses, NAFTA also has tended to tie the hands of labor unions, resulting in weakened pay rates and benefits. According to a report by the Hemispheric Social Alliance, it was clear to many labor organizers from the initial formation of NAFTA that the trade pact would cripple workers rights.
Predictably, the Clinton administration responded with toothless side agreements (such as the North American Agreement for Labor Cooperation) that did almost nothing to effectively bolster labor's influence or sense of security.
In fact, NAFTA has given US employers the opportunity to move their operations outside of the US with much greater ease. As such, the threat of moving jobs outside of the country has, on numerous occasions, been used by management in the US to bargain for lower wages, poorer conditions as a result of give-backs, and to stave off union organizing drives.
From the signing of NAFTA until 1999, there was a steady increase in the number of employers using relocation as a negotiation tactic. According to a report filed by NAFTA expert Kate Bronfenbrenner for the US Trade Deficit Review Commission, at some point during 68% of all union organizing drives in 1999, the threat of closing and/or moving production out of the US was used by employers as a methodology to restrict worker's rights. In 18% of such campaigns, Mexico was specifically cited as the final destination for jobs being moved outside of the US.
Reevaluation of Policy
As NAFTA lives on, it is critical to look back and reconsider the free trade policies that have been relentlessly pursued since the Clinton White House and the Democratic Leadership Council took on as their own what essentially was a Republican Party trade posture.
The evidence is overwhelming: NAFTA has damaged the manufacturing industry in the US and Mexico. As the maquiladora industry thrives (even in light of recent whittling) and human rights are continuously eroded in sweatshops across the globe, it is the responsibility of the US, the world's most insatiable consumer, to call attention to this injustice in the manufacturing sector and correct it through trade policies that affirm human dignity, such as the fair trade movement and regulations created by the US government to monitor whether equitable labor rights are being respected, as well as under what conditions foreign goods and services are being imported into this country.
Furthermore, the labor movement that helped make the US into the economic superpower it is today must be allowed to function without intimidation or manipulation.
Free trade agreements which spawn sweatshops and undermine the autonomous status of laborers the world over, and compromise future trade pacts, must make a greater effort to benefit all citizens, not just the corporate and banking sectors which normally are the primary beneficiaries of the US economic order.
http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/news_item.asp?nid=2768559
The tail end of Free Trade and the impact of NAFTA on US manufacturing
Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) research associate Jacob Hill writes: In this, the fourteenth year of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), it is of the utmost importance -- in terms of its continued application in the future -- to look back and examine the economic impact of free trade on the US and Mexico over the last decade and a half.
A major component of the exercise will be NAFTA's impact on the proliferation of the maquiladora sector, which repeatedly has resulted in a precipitous drop in manufacturing jobs in the US and Mexico as well as a reliable precedence for the weakening of labor standards in much of the third world.
Human Rights Abuses in Mexican Manufacturing
One of the most drastic and disturbing results of NAFTA has been a boom in the Mexican maquiladora sector. In the US and the developed world, these manufacturing units would deservedly be known as sweatshops. The maquiladoras operate within Latin America because of the abundance of cheap labor and the poor conditions being tolerated. Due to the removal of protective tariffs by free trade pacts, raw components are imported to the maquiladoras without being taxed. Additionally, the machinery involved in the maquiladora process is also allowed to enter Mexico tariff-free under NAFTA's terms.
Then, Mexican laborers work to turn the raw goods into finished products, adding value to the goods. The end products are then exported to developed nations, with minimal tax levied that is based only on the value added during production.
Although one could argue that within the capitalist model, Mexico's comparative advantage would be its inexpensive labor, the human rights abuses often associated with the maquiladora process thus bring with them a heavy economic disadvantage.
The sweatshop problem has been well known since the inception of NAFTA. In 1995, just a year after the implementation of the free trade agreement, The New York Times reported on the exploitation of Mexican young girls by the maquiladoras. US companies, often working through third parties, pay children as young as 14 years of age wages under 40 cents per hour. Maquiladoras located within walled and barbed wired free trade zones are not only exempt from import taxes, but are also exempt from state and local imposts for up to 10 years.
Once a corporation structure is set up as a free trade zone and secures a manufacturing contract with a large multinational company, the owner of the facility maximizes profits by informally sanctioning a number of abuses, including offering low wages, tolerating dismal safety standards, refusing to provide health benefits and insisting upon unpaid overtime.
One of the primary problems with the current system of production is that the prevailing economic conditions in the countries housing the maquiladoras are so marginal that the only jobs available are in such sweatshops. For instance, since the passage of NAFTA, over one million Mexican corn farmers have lost their jobs. With such high rates of unemployment, workers are forced to either leave their homes and villages to migrate to more prosperous countries (hence the spike in illegal immigration to the US since the establishment of NAFTA and other bilateral Latin American free trade agreements) or take low-paying jobs featuring a range of abuses in the maquiladoras.
Many of the maquiladora workers come from the rural areas of Mexico which, according to the World Bank, have experienced "stagnation of growth, lack of competitiveness in the international market, [and] an increase in poverty" since the advent of NAFTA.
As a result, sweatshop workers possess almost no leverage to negotiate improved labor rights. Refusing to work overtime, taking breaks (in spite of the fact that they are required by un-enforced law), illness, visits to the doctor, and pregnancy rests have all been recorded as reasons for job terminations in the maquiladora sector. There also have been instances of free trade zone managers forcing workers under their jurisdiction to knowingly deceive representatives of governmental labor monitoring groups. Nevertheless, everyday realities frequently force workers to work under these abhorrent conditions, as jobs are scarce and employees are extremely expendable. Tens of thousands of other impoverished laborers are fully prepared to eagerly occupy any jobs vacated by workers seeking greater labor and human rights or economic benefits.
Faux Worker Protection
While under NAFTA's side agreements, there are mechanisms in place to protect workers, they are more often than not simply facades. Company unions may be required by free trade zone managers in order to allow such corporations to claim that they are compliant with regulations allowing for union representation, these, in reality, are entirely management-controlled and allow only minor shifts in policy, acting more as a "smoke and mirrors" show than an actual vehicle for enlightened worker protection.
Additionally, some Latin American countries actually have very strong workers' rights guarantees. Some analysts argue that Nicaragua's labor rights laws, for example, are actually stronger than those in effect in the US, but they are rarely enforced. The problem with this situation arises when one contrasts the advantages of free trade zones for the countries in question with the disadvantages for both labor and the national economies that are involved.
As mentioned above, countless steps are being taken to ensure that labor costs in the maquiladoras are kept as low as possible. The philosophy of management is that any intervention by the authorities in favor of the workers would only cost the corporations more money; increases in safety monitoring, healthcare, or augmented wages are all expensive propositions.
If the governments of Latin America were to press free trade zone operators to implement these labor standard changes as an act of common equity, foreign-owned maquiladoras would most likely either leave the Americas altogether in favor of lower cost locations in Asia, or take the matter before a NAFTA dispute panel. Thus, it is not necessarily in the interest of regional governments to enforce those labor standards on the books, because they can be blackmailed with the threat that any attempt to enforce them would most likely be met with an eventual pullout of foreign investment from the country. This would not only devastate the effected nations' economies, but would also leave those presently working in the maquiladoras unemployed, with few remaining options at hand.
Proliferation of Maquiladoras
According to the Economic and Financial Review, there is a direct correlation between the spread of the maquiladora industry and the inauguration of NAFTA. During the first six years after the signing of the trade pact (1994-2000), there was a 110% growth in the Mexican sweatshop industry.
Besides the human rights abuses inherent in the operation of the maquiladoras, the primary problem with this category of growth is that it is not economically sustainable.
According to Fidel Aroche, in his article "Vertical Integration and Comparative Advantages," although the manufacturing sector in Mexico has grown, the processes in place will not ensure long-term growth for Mexico because the industry is based on imported inputs with hardly any existing connection to the rest of the country's productive machinery. Thus, the majority of the growth is in unsustainable industries based on the exploitation of labor and the "race to the bottom" among wages in developing nations.
According to a 2006 report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the maquiladora industry is "stuck in a trap of low productivity growth, reduced skills, and sustained by low wages." Moreover, for better or for worse, Mexico is losing the "race to the bottom." The aforementioned report goes on to state that, in fact, "the number of maquiladora companies has diminished since 2000, which is the result of various companies leaving the country to go to other countries with wages even lower than those in Mexico."
Manufacturing in the US.
There is no denying the fact that NAFTA has generated an impressive net growth regarding exports from the US. Since the pact's inception, according to the EPI, U.S. outflows to Mexico have increased 114% and exports to Canada have risen 60%. On the other hand, imports from Mexico to the US have risen by 274%, while those from Canada have grown by 90%. As a result, the US' combined $20.6 billion trade deficit to Mexico and Canada in 1993 has ballooned in the post-NAFTA era by 538% to $110.6 billion in 2004 (figures provided in inflation-adjusted 1996 dollars by the EPI). This deficit is a signal of a growing US dependence on the health of external economies and has affected several of the nation's key historic industries.
According to David Raney of the Alliance for Responsible Trade, the five major industrial groups which produce the US' most important exports (chemicals, plastics, electrical machinery and equipment, transportation equipment, and computers/electronic equipment) now have negative trade balances, which have increased at a staggering rate since NAFTA's ordination.
There is a direct correlation between the growth of the US' trade deficit and the rise in unemployment throughout the US manufacturing sector over the last 13 years
According to international trade and macroeconomics expert Dr. L. Josh Bivins, growing trade deficits are responsible for 34 to 58% of the decline in manufacturing unemployment. When one looks at the whole picture, NAFTA is responsible for a 77% increase in jobs supported by domestic exports and a 147% increase in jobs displaced by imports.
During the first 10 years of NAFTA, 942,459 jobs were created in the US by the agreement, but 1,956,750 jobs have been nullified by it, resulting in an overall net loss of more than 1,000,000 jobs.
A report by Public Citizen found that workers in the US who have lost high-wage jobs with benefits in the manufacturing sector have only been able to find "new work in service sector positions that typically pay 23-77% less than their previous wages and offer few or no benefits."
Among the hardest hit in the US have been Latino workers. According to the report by the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, 47% of the total number of workers who received federal assistance under a program for workers certified as having lost jobs in 1999 as a direct result of NAFTA, were Latino.
In addition to harming US workers by causing job losses, NAFTA also has tended to tie the hands of labor unions, resulting in weakened pay rates and benefits. According to a report by the Hemispheric Social Alliance, it was clear to many labor organizers from the initial formation of NAFTA that the trade pact would cripple workers rights.
Predictably, the Clinton administration responded with toothless side agreements (such as the North American Agreement for Labor Cooperation) that did almost nothing to effectively bolster labor's influence or sense of security.
In fact, NAFTA has given US employers the opportunity to move their operations outside of the US with much greater ease. As such, the threat of moving jobs outside of the country has, on numerous occasions, been used by management in the US to bargain for lower wages, poorer conditions as a result of give-backs, and to stave off union organizing drives.
From the signing of NAFTA until 1999, there was a steady increase in the number of employers using relocation as a negotiation tactic. According to a report filed by NAFTA expert Kate Bronfenbrenner for the US Trade Deficit Review Commission, at some point during 68% of all union organizing drives in 1999, the threat of closing and/or moving production out of the US was used by employers as a methodology to restrict worker's rights. In 18% of such campaigns, Mexico was specifically cited as the final destination for jobs being moved outside of the US.
Reevaluation of Policy
As NAFTA lives on, it is critical to look back and reconsider the free trade policies that have been relentlessly pursued since the Clinton White House and the Democratic Leadership Council took on as their own what essentially was a Republican Party trade posture.
The evidence is overwhelming: NAFTA has damaged the manufacturing industry in the US and Mexico. As the maquiladora industry thrives (even in light of recent whittling) and human rights are continuously eroded in sweatshops across the globe, it is the responsibility of the US, the world's most insatiable consumer, to call attention to this injustice in the manufacturing sector and correct it through trade policies that affirm human dignity, such as the fair trade movement and regulations created by the US government to monitor whether equitable labor rights are being respected, as well as under what conditions foreign goods and services are being imported into this country.
Furthermore, the labor movement that helped make the US into the economic superpower it is today must be allowed to function without intimidation or manipulation.
Free trade agreements which spawn sweatshops and undermine the autonomous status of laborers the world over, and compromise future trade pacts, must make a greater effort to benefit all citizens, not just the corporate and banking sectors which normally are the primary beneficiaries of the US economic order.
Now lets appeal NAFTA........ here's the link that you can use to send a letter direct to congress......... says it can be appealed with a six month notice to Canada and Mexido..... stop the NAU as well......... (but of course NAU doesn't exist).....
http://capwiz.com/jbs/issues/alert/?alertid=9580451
http://capwiz.com/jbs/issues/alert/?alertid=9580451
A
Anonymous
Guest
Yep-- NAFTA made all that money for Mexico too-- except it all went in a few corrupt politicians and elitists pockets...The reason the Mexican workers are scrambling and dying to get into the US to work for the elitists here that are trying to/have created another "plantation class" where semislave illegal laborers can be used, misused, abused, for the Corporate elitists (slave owners) enrichment while costing the average US taxpayer a fortune in social costs..... :???:
:???:
A
Anonymous
Guest
NAFTA heating up as issue in United States
Updated Mon. Aug. 13 2007 7:48 PM ET
Canadian Press / CTV
VANCOUVER -- A high-level meeting in Vancouver about the North American Free Trade Agreement is flying largely under the media radar as NAFTA gets hammered on the U.S. election hustings.
The so-called NAFTA Commission -- U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, Mexico's Secretary of the Economy Edjuardo Sojo and International Trade Minister David Emerson _ is holding two days of discussions.
Spokespeople for Emerson and Schwab offered no detail about Monday's bilateral meetings, saying only that the two discussed food safety, intellectual property rights and softwood lumber _ subject of an U.S.-launched arbitration under the 10-month-old softwood lumber agreement..
A spokesman for Sojo could not be reached.
A news conference is scheduled for Tuesday.
The regular NAFTA Commission meetings don't generate much newsworthy heat at the best of times but the three have even less reason to open up.
Free trade is once again coming under fire in the presidential election campaign in the United States, NAFTA's centre of gravity.
The leading Democratic hopefuls all slammed the 1993 agreement during a labour-sponsored debate last week, calling for its reopening to entrench environmental and labour standards.
Senator Hillary Clinton, whose husband as president pushed NAFTA through Congress, declared the agreement had hurt American workers.
Rival Senator Barak Obama said if he won the 2008 vote he'd call "the president of Mexico, the president of Canada'' to amend NAFTA to incorporate labour agreements.
Senator John Edwards, trailing the frontrunners, has talked even tougher but stopped short of calling for NAFTA to be scrapped.
"People see an economic crisis on the horizon,'' said Liberal trade critic Navdeep Bains, referring to the ballooning U.S. trade deficit, the deepening mortgage crisis and housing slowdown.
"I think there seems to be a kneejerk reaction towards protectionism. The debates are a reflection of some of the concern that's been highlighted.''
None of this surprises veteran observers of the trade file.
American unions and the Democratic party's left wing are generally anti-free-trade but represent an important slice of the voter base for any presidential candidate, says Sidney Weintraub of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
But the eventual Democratic nominee is likely to follow tradition and move to a more moderate position, Weintraub said in an interview.
"I think it doesn't have too much traction,'' he said.
But an anti-trade position can pay off in the presidential primary elections that determine each party's nominee, said Prof. James Brander of the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business.
There aren't many people likely to vote for candidates favouring trade liberalization, said Brander.
"And there are a lot of people, especially on the left, who are unhappy about NAFTA and about trade liberalization, who will vote for a candidate who takes a strong position on that,'' he said.
An anti-trade position can pay off more in the primaries, which draw more actively partisan voters than the general election itself, said Brander.
The danger, said Weintraub, is if candidates find themselves locked into commitments they make during the primaries.
Republician candidates are generally anti-protectionist but from their underdog position going into 2008 are unlikely to stump for more liberalized trade.
They face their own threat from the party's right wing, where anti-immigration elements have allied with anti-trade Democrats on the job-loss issue.
"It's not trade that they're worried about as much as it is immigration and having a single market,'' said Weintraub.
Bains said the Liberals, who finalized and signed NAFTA, believe the agreement has benefited Canada.
But the party has no objection to adding tougher labour and environmental standards to NAFTA.
"We would love to enhance any of those issues when it comes to environmental standards, when it comes to health standards and standards when it comes to working conditions,'' he said.
"I don't know if opening the agreement is the way to go about it. Maybe other side deals might be a possibility. When you open it up, further expectations are created.''
ctv.ca
Updated Mon. Aug. 13 2007 7:48 PM ET
Canadian Press / CTV
VANCOUVER -- A high-level meeting in Vancouver about the North American Free Trade Agreement is flying largely under the media radar as NAFTA gets hammered on the U.S. election hustings.
The so-called NAFTA Commission -- U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, Mexico's Secretary of the Economy Edjuardo Sojo and International Trade Minister David Emerson _ is holding two days of discussions.
Spokespeople for Emerson and Schwab offered no detail about Monday's bilateral meetings, saying only that the two discussed food safety, intellectual property rights and softwood lumber _ subject of an U.S.-launched arbitration under the 10-month-old softwood lumber agreement..
A spokesman for Sojo could not be reached.
A news conference is scheduled for Tuesday.
The regular NAFTA Commission meetings don't generate much newsworthy heat at the best of times but the three have even less reason to open up.
Free trade is once again coming under fire in the presidential election campaign in the United States, NAFTA's centre of gravity.
The leading Democratic hopefuls all slammed the 1993 agreement during a labour-sponsored debate last week, calling for its reopening to entrench environmental and labour standards.
Senator Hillary Clinton, whose husband as president pushed NAFTA through Congress, declared the agreement had hurt American workers.
Rival Senator Barak Obama said if he won the 2008 vote he'd call "the president of Mexico, the president of Canada'' to amend NAFTA to incorporate labour agreements.
Senator John Edwards, trailing the frontrunners, has talked even tougher but stopped short of calling for NAFTA to be scrapped.
"People see an economic crisis on the horizon,'' said Liberal trade critic Navdeep Bains, referring to the ballooning U.S. trade deficit, the deepening mortgage crisis and housing slowdown.
"I think there seems to be a kneejerk reaction towards protectionism. The debates are a reflection of some of the concern that's been highlighted.''
None of this surprises veteran observers of the trade file.
American unions and the Democratic party's left wing are generally anti-free-trade but represent an important slice of the voter base for any presidential candidate, says Sidney Weintraub of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
But the eventual Democratic nominee is likely to follow tradition and move to a more moderate position, Weintraub said in an interview.
"I think it doesn't have too much traction,'' he said.
But an anti-trade position can pay off in the presidential primary elections that determine each party's nominee, said Prof. James Brander of the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business.
There aren't many people likely to vote for candidates favouring trade liberalization, said Brander.
"And there are a lot of people, especially on the left, who are unhappy about NAFTA and about trade liberalization, who will vote for a candidate who takes a strong position on that,'' he said.
An anti-trade position can pay off more in the primaries, which draw more actively partisan voters than the general election itself, said Brander.
The danger, said Weintraub, is if candidates find themselves locked into commitments they make during the primaries.
Republician candidates are generally anti-protectionist but from their underdog position going into 2008 are unlikely to stump for more liberalized trade.
They face their own threat from the party's right wing, where anti-immigration elements have allied with anti-trade Democrats on the job-loss issue.
"It's not trade that they're worried about as much as it is immigration and having a single market,'' said Weintraub.
Bains said the Liberals, who finalized and signed NAFTA, believe the agreement has benefited Canada.
But the party has no objection to adding tougher labour and environmental standards to NAFTA.
"We would love to enhance any of those issues when it comes to environmental standards, when it comes to health standards and standards when it comes to working conditions,'' he said.
"I don't know if opening the agreement is the way to go about it. Maybe other side deals might be a possibility. When you open it up, further expectations are created.''
ctv.ca
don
Well-known member
But the eventual Democratic nominee is likely to follow tradition and move to a more moderate position, Weintraub said in an interview.
"I think it doesn't have too much traction,'' he said.
"I think it doesn't have too much traction,'' he said.
Kato
Well-known member
Canada has a president now? :? :lol: :lol: :lol: Does Senator Obama know about some other plan GW has that they haven't told us about? :shock: :shock: :shock: :wink: :wink:
A
Anonymous
Guest
Kato said:
Obama must have an in on this North American Union plan-- :wink: President Hillary could be several steps forward with her wish of having a socialized country when they take over Canada :wink: :lol: :lol:
Comical-- this comes out of Vancouver and is credited to the Canadian press :roll: