‘Free Trade’ a Serious Threat

[unhappycamper]

http://watchingamerica.com/News/227667/free-trade-a-serious-threat/

‘Free Trade’ a Serious Threat
La Hora, Guatemala
By Centro de Colaboraciones Solidarias (Javier Caño Tamayo)
Translated By Miken Trogdon
5 December 2013
Edited by Gillian Palmer

~snip~

When something has leaked out, only the “great advantages of the treaty” have been mentioned. Increasing the GDP of the European Union by 1 percent, 110 billion Euros in European taxes, and $95 billion for the U.S. — these are macroeconomic calculations that never factor in negative working, social or environmental consequences.

In Latin America during the ‘90s, the U.S. wanted to establish a free trade zone with Central and South America. With the mantra that free trade enriches everything, that multilateral treaty (that was never adopted) consisted of imposing the neoliberal creed and measures of the Washington Consensus — policies for the benefit of the economic and financial elite.

So the U.S. negotiated and signed bilateral treaties with Colombia, Peru and Chile, and the treaty with Mexico and Canada. As the media testify, this last treaty had devastating consequences for the industrial and agricultural sectors in Mexico, provoked an intense and abundant migration to the U.S. and limited the possibilities for development in Mexico. It wasn’t much better for Peru, Colombia and Chile, who have not eliminated historic poverty and have seen their levels of inequality grow.

We have another record: The negotiation of the free trade treaty between the U.S. and 11 Pacific coastal countries, from Japan to New Zealand. WikiLeaks has obtained and published a rough copy of that Transpacific Association Treaty. It doesn’t look good. For starters, it expects Internet service providers to be police and judges that eliminate web content if they believe that it violates copyright laws — plus a type of international court in defense of said laws that will ignore sovereignty and national courts.

[daleanime]

1. K&R....

[safeinOhio]

2. For close to the first 100 years

this country had no income tax. Government was paid for with duties on imported goods. That also grew our industries and put millions of people to work.

[grahamhgreen]

3. COSTLY trade agreements.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. I disagree

Free the trade has been @$!#ing awesome!

Season's greetings,

The Predator Class

[mtasselin]

5. free trade

Free trade my ass, this is just world corporations pitting one country against another who is going to do it for less. This is a spiral to the bottom where the corporations control the world, and my country is leading the way. This is not the hope and change I voted for, if I would have known.

[Enthusiast]

6. Renegotiate NAFTA!

And just say no to the TPP!