The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is the natural expansion of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to every country in Central America, South America and the Caribbean, except Cuba. Negotiations began right after the launch of NAFTA in 1994 and was set to be completed in 2005. Led by strong social movements across the hemisphere, countries like Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil have said NO to a model that has increased poverty across the globe, and are instead searching for a better model of regional integration. The FTAA relies on NAFTA rules for structuring negotiations. The proposed agreement has been described by its opponents as essentially NAFTA on steroids. Unfortunately, NAFTA has proven to be less-than-beneficial for working families and the environment. The FTAA will impose NAFTA model of increased privatization and deregulation hemisphere-wide. The nine working groups set up to negotiate the FTAA correspond closely to the chapters of NAFTA and cover the following topics: agriculture, competition policy, dispute settlement, government procurement, intellectual property rights, investment, market access, services, subsidies and anti-dumping. FTAA would deepen the negative effects of NAFTA that have been seen in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. over the past eight years and expand NAFTA's impact to an additional 31 countries. For a in-depth analysis of the implications of the FTAA and its impact on human rights, we recommend you look at WOLA's excellent discussion on the subject. [WOLA on FTAA] The FTAA will empower corporations to constrain governments from setting standards for public health and safety, to safeguard their workers, and to ensure corporations do not pollute the communities in which they operate. Effectively, FTAA rules will handcuff governments' ability to pass public interest laws. The agreement will enhance corporate power at the expense of citizens throughout the Americas Global Exchange has an excellent discussion called "Ten Reasons to Oppose FTAA." We recommend that you look at it: [Global Exchange on FTAA] Another imporatant factor is that the resistance to the FTAA by some of the larger countries in the hemisphere has led to more emphasis on getting the Central American countries to agree to CAFTA. The US administration had planned to have CAFTA signed, sealed and delivered by the end of 2004, but was unable to get enough votes in Congress, even with the Republican majority. So there is a strong effort underway now to get it through early this year. As you will note on the CAFTA page, the churches of Central America have called on the faith communities of North America to help them resist and oppose this treaty, which they see as detrimental to their people. The Impact of NAFTA on Canada, Mexico and the US: W hen NAFTA was under consideration by the US Congress in the early 90s, under the first Bush administration, the agreement's backers promised big job gains along both sides of the border. This hasn't occurred. In fact, the results have been disastrous for US workers. In the US, an estimated 766,000 jobs have disappeared since NAFTA as companies relocate to Mexico to take advantage of weaker labor standards and lower wages and practically non-existent environmental regulations. When displaced workers look for new jobs, they often end up in the service sector, where wages are, on average, 23 percent lower than in manufacturing. Also, US unionization efforts are often undermined by threats to transfer production unless employees end their organizing attempts. According to a Cornell University study, two-thirds of manufacturing and communication companies faced with union organizing campaigns since NAFTA threatened workers with moving their jobs abroad. Workers in Mexico have also suffered from NAFTA. In December 1994 Mexico was forced to devalue the peso to attract the foreign investment needed for a free trade, export-oriented economy. This devastated the Mexican economy, pushing 8 million families out of the middle class and into poverty. Over one million more Mexicans work for less than the minimum wage of $3.40 per day now than before NAFTA. Approximately 28,000 small businesses in Mexico have shut down due to the entrance of foreign companies. Manufacturing wages dropped 21 percent from 1995 to 1999, and have only started to recover. Family farmers have been devastated, as massive government subsidies to US agricultural business make if possible for US producers to export products, such as corn, to Mexico at prices far below the costs of production in that country. This led to the breakdown of the FTAA gathering in Cancun in 2003, as 21 countries, led by Brazil, walked out when the US refused to discuss these subsidies and their impact on local production in Latin American countries if "free trade" treaties are signed that will allow subsidized US products to compete with non-subsidized products in the region. More than a million family farmers have been, literaly, wiped out by this kind of trade under NAFTA. The FTAA would intensify NAFTA's "race to the bottom." Under FTAA, corporations will pit workers in Mexico against even more desperate workers in Guatemala or Haiti. Already, Mexico is losing maquiladora jobs to countries with cheaper wages. In the last two years, 280,000 jobs have vanished with the closure of some 350 maquiladoras. In addition, NAFTA has sped up the environmental degradation of Mexico, as US and Canadian plants, which face relatively strong environmental standards at home, have been able to set up shop in Mexico without costly restraints. The result has been increased health problems for the people in the regions where new plants have been established under the terms of NAFTA. CAFTA will offer more of the same throughout the Central American region. Global Exchange has an excellent discussion on how the FTAA will affect you. We recommend it. Fair Trade as an alternative to "Free Trade" Many church and labor groups, both in the US and in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are calling for fair trade as an alternative to the so-called "free trade" of NAFTA, CAFTA and the FTAA. The Florida Fair Trade Coalition has an excellent website dealing with this issue. It also has links and contacts with a number of other organizations dealing with these issues. The Hemisphere: (we recommend that you visit and get to know these website: Council on Hemisphere Affairs [COHA] International Relations Center [IRC] Center for International Policy [CIPON]
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