What “Free Trade” Has Done to Central America
What “Free Trade” Has Done to Central America
Warnings about the human and environmental costs of “free trade” went unheeded. Now the most vulnerable Central Americans are paying the price.
By Manuel Perez-Rocha and Julia Paley, November 21, 2014.
This article is a joint publication of Foreign Policy In Focus and TheNation.com.
With Republicans winning big in the midterm elections, the debate over so-called “free-trade” agreements could again take center stage in Washington.
President Barack Obama has been angling for “fast-track” authority that would enable him to push the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP—a massive free-trade agreement between the United States and a host of Pacific Rim countries—through Congress with limited debate and no opportunity for amendments.
From the outset, the politicians who support the agreement have overplayed its benefits and underplayed its costs. They seldom note, for example, that the pact would allow corporations to sue governments whose regulations threaten their profits in cases brought before secretive and unaccountable foreign tribunals.
So let’s look closely at the real impact trade agreements have on people and the environment.
A prime example is the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement, or DR-CAFTA. Brokered by the George W. Bush administration and a handful of hemispheric allies, the pact has had a devastating effect on poverty, dislocation, and environmental contamination in the region.
And perhaps even worse, it’s diminished the ability of Central American countries to protect their citizens from corporate abuse.
More:
http://fpif.org/free-trade-done-central-america/
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