Edwards says NAFTA can be fixed

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/election/0204nation/25edwards.html

Campaigning for a second day in Georgia, John Edwards defended his position on international trade Tuesday, saying the North American Free Trade Agreement he often criticizes can be made to work if it is revised to include labor and environmental standards.

In Ohio, front-runner John Kerry also addressed the trade issue, telling metal workers that, if elected, he would intervene in trade arrangements to try to stem foreign nations' illegal dumping of subsidized products.

Both men cautioned that international trade can't be stopped, only made fairer.

Utah, Idaho and Hawaii held caucuses and primaries on Tuesday. But Kerry and Edwards spent their time in states that are among the 10 participating in next week's Super Tuesday voting, when the biggest haul of delegates yet this campaign season will be at stake.

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[lcordero]

1. no it cannot be fixed

Enforcement of measures taken to level out the playing field can be underfunded and go unenforced. There is only ONE solution and that is to trash NAFTA COMPLETELY.

[brokensymmetry]

2. Agree completely!!!! n/t

.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. After pulling out of NAFTA what would you do?

Ending the agreement solves nothing on its own. What tariffs would you raise, or what subsidies would you start? How do you envisage the economy and trade going due to your changes?

[lcordero]

5. I don't know

I don't like industries being taken overseas for the same reasons that I do not like centralization. With centralization someplace else, we are one wrong move or one frame-up away from being economically crippled from a sanction.

[Taeger]

4. It might be fixable ...

It might be fixable. But no one will take negotiations seriously unless they KNOW before hand that US negotiators have the authority to withdraw from the agreement.

Otherwise, negotiators for Mexico and Canada will just stall and blow smoke up our collective asses.

I'm not fundamentally opposed to comprehensive systems of international tariffs. But they CANNOT usurp national authority. That means that NO ONE can veto US laws except Americans!!!!!

[rucky]

6. The president could try to fix it, but

It seems unlikely that anybody would be able to negotiate any changes within the system that the WTO wouldn't overrule as a "barrier to free trade". So you have to get our trading partners to agree, the WTO to agree, and even then, you'll still be facing multimillion dollar lawsuits from corporations which they have the right to file under Article 11 of NAFTA. The only way around that is to either try & reform that law (with corporate agreement) or toss out NAFTA altogether. Now tell me which plan is the real "fast track" - Edwards' or Kucinich's?

here's an article that explains the self-licking ice-cream cone that the corporatists have created for themselves:

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:HQlb1kFCZjMJ:www.commondreams.org/views01/0630-01.htm+NAFTA+article+11+fast+track&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

(snip)
Organized secretively by national leaders and representatives of multinational corporations from all over the globe, NAFTA, WTO and now FTAA take decision-making power out of the hands of states or local communities and transfer it to faceless bureaucracies controlled by unelected corporate representatives. Under these transnational institutions, anything construed as a barrier to "free trade" can be challenged and repealed.

Thus a foreign business can file a protest against state, county or city standards that protect food safety or public health, establish safeguards for working people on the job, or establish anti-pollution regulations, claiming that such measures are "unfair" trade practices. Then a NAFTA, WTO or FTAA tribunal -- consisting of corporate lawyers and meeting without public input -- can overturn those regulations, local wishes notwithstanding. Such anti-democratic practices may only get worse if fast track and FTAA are approved.

Fast track would allow the president's team to negotiate with other nations without any public input, and then would limit debate on and amendments to any agreement, and finally force a straight up or down vote on the FTAA bill. Citizens and even senators would have a limited role in such an important piece of legislation, a situation that raises constitutional questions as well as serious concerns about our democracy.

If enacted, the FTAA will centralize even more the power of corporations and the state to act as they wish without a voice from local communities, citizens or courts. Indeed, this is already happening. Foreign firms have brought challenges to U.S. laws and legal decisions under Chapter 11 of NAFTA, which established a broad definition of investment and property rights, and allows them to sue for damages when U.S. standards restrain their ability to trade.