U.S. lawmaker plans quick action on Peru trade pact

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Reuters

By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said on Tuesday he would move quickly to win approval of a free trade agreement with Peru that has been stalled in Congress since last year.

"I expect it to pass without too much difficulty," the Montana Democrat told reporters after leaving a hearing to examine revamped labor and environmental provisions of the trade pact. "We're going to move expeditiously."

The Bush administration hopes Senate action will prod the House of Representatives into following suit -- breaking a logjam that has held up the trade agreement since Democrats won control of Congress last year.

Although House Democrats negotiated an agreement with the Bush administration to strengthen labor and environmental provisions of trade agreements with Peru, Colombia, Panama and South Korea, they have been slow to begin legislative action on the trade pacts.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1143692620070911

[dipsydoodle]

1. Well, unless they wish to maliciously harm

the people of Peru I hope it doesn't get passed.

Peru is engaged in a delicate reconciliation process after decades of armed conflict and the country remains burdened by high levels of poverty and a growing gap between rich and poor. In a desperate attempt to gain support for the U.S.-Peru FTA, the U.S. Trade Representative is claiming the trade pact will lead to increased democratic stability in the region and curb cultivation of coca and trafficking of cocaine. Based on our experience with NAFTA and CAFTA we think the opposite is true. The U.S.-Peru FTA will cause lost livelihoods in rural communities, reduce access to life-saving medicines and perpetuate the global “race to the bottom” for workers and environmental protection.

If passed the U.S.-Peru FTA will:

THREATEN SMALL FARMERS by lowering Peru’s tariffs on agricultural products, making the country vulnerable to cheap subsidized imports from the U.S, which would effectively wipe out local farmers—as happened to the 1.3 million who have been displaced in Mexico since NAFTA passed 12 years ago. This is of particular concern in a country working to curb coca production.

THREATEN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES by opening the way for large pharmaceutical and agribusiness corporations to patent traditional knowledge, seeds, and life forms. This opens the door to bio-piracy of the biogenetic wealth of the Andean-Amazon region and threatens the ecological, medicinal and cultural heritage of indigenous peoples.
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THREATEN WOMEN, CHILDREN, AND THE POOR through provisions promoting the privatization and deregulation of essential services such as water, healthcare and education. As these services become less accessible, women and the poor would have to make up for increases in prices of these services in order to ensure adequate health, education and food conditions for themselves and their families, increasing their workday within and outside the home.

http://www.afsc.org/trade-matters/trade-agreements/Peru-statement.htm

[Joanne98]

2. Bastards!

[IsItJustMe]

3. Guess everyone there in Congress are now free traders.

[CarlosDC]

4. PLEASE CONTACT CONGRESS HERE

I am a Peruvian immigrant living in the US over 11 years. The main reasons why I left my first country were the discriminatory practices that post-colonial Peruvian government and the centralist Lima society continue to impose over most Peruvians. Like several other Latin American countries, most of us Peruvians are either Native Indigenous or Afro descendant people, but there is a small elite of Hispanics or whites who promote division, poverty and racial discrimination in all aspects of society. Especially in terms of distribution of richness and the profits from exploitation of natural resources as minerals, oil, natural gas,tourism and some agriculture products, which Peru has in abundance.

Every time I return to Peru, it touches me to see my people living in the same -if not worse- poverty that I grew up in, even when the country's economy has been growing for the last 7 years according to World Bank and IMF data.

Some Democrats are saying that Peru will improve its labor legislation so the FTA will be a fair trade agreement. I don't believe that. Peruvian government doesn't represent the interests of most Peruvians at all. Peruvian workers don't have access to labor rights, corruption has infested almost all our leaders and institutions, human rights are weak and the gap between rich and poor has increased due to neo-liberal policies implemented in the last 16 years.

Another example of how little the Peruvian government cares about our own people can be seeing at the recent earthquake in southern Peru a month ago. Today most of victims haven't received much help and reconstruction hasn't even started in most cities, although the government has the biggest surplus of its history and donations have arrived from all over the world. A radio station in the city of Pisco that denounced the lack of attention from the government, has got its license terminated.

Many people ask me why I am not in Peru to help my people directly, but I have settle family roots in the US now and I can help from the US too. But we all have to help because US workers will continue to lose jobs if this FTA is approved, and the environment of our planet will be affected too.

Please go to this link and using an online form you can send a letter to your Representative and to both of your Senators.

http://action.citizen.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=12561

Thanks.