Why no posts about the North American trade agreement...

[coco77]

that bush is pushing with Canada and Mexico. I heard a rightwing talk show host earlier today telling his listeners that them liberals are for it and that we want to give the country away.

[demnan]

1. This is huge issue with me, I'm a Prince William County VA resident

I went before the Board of Supervisors before they passed their draconian Nation-wide famous bill on Immigration Reform. I said, as Congressman Kucinich says, Don't blame the victim. Don't proscute illegal immigrants who left Mexico and other Central American Countries because they were starving due to NAFTA.

But we continue to blame the victim in this case. We as a country make me sick, sometimes.

[coco77]

3. I don't know a whole lot about the issue...

I have heard people saying that it in someway affects truck drivers in this country and it will be a superhighway connecting each country.

[Double T]

2. I'm a liberal and I'm NOT for North American Free Trade, .........

illegal alien amnesty or so called open borders. This country can't even take of its own, in addition to tens of millions of others. It has NOTHING to do with being liberal and everything to do with being sane.

[coco77]

4. From what I have heard it is not good...

I heard that it takes jobs from truck drivers and anyone will be able to smuggle anything they want into this country easily. There are so many things that have happened since the ass stole the election and he has no business making any decision that effects the country in a major way, he is destroying the country while his ass will be in Parguay.

[Elspeth]

5. You mean this? (Note the laughter at a single currency)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/world/americas/22canada.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

No Breakthroughs at Canada Talks


Published: August 22, 2007

MONTEBELLO, Quebec, Aug. 21 — President Bush met with Prime Minster Stephen Harper of Canada and President Felipe Calderón of Mexico here on Tuesday at a gathering that focused primarily on strengthening ties and some thorny trade and border issues, but which produced no breakthroughs.

The three laughed off what they called conspiracy theories in the United States and Canada that they were planning to build an American Union with a common currency.

“A couple of my opposition leaders have speculated on massive water diversions and superhighways to the continent — maybe interplanetary, I’m not sure, as well,” Mr. Harper deadpanned.

Mr. Bush said he disagreed with Canada’s claim that the Northwest Passage was its sovereign territory, though he recognized its claims on the Arctic islands it says are its own.
More Articles in International ».....

[Elspeth]

6. As if the Euro never happened either.

August 21, 2007
Bush’s Talks With Neighbors Are Overshadowed by Storm
By JIM RUTENBERG

OTTAWA, Aug. 20 — President Bush met in a wooded resort east of here on Monday with his counterparts to the north and the south — Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada and President Felipe Calderón of Mexico — to discuss the drafting of emergency border provisions, the stalled international trade talks, and immigration.

But Hurricane Dean’s expected landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico threw into doubt three-way talks that were scheduled for Tuesday. Mr. Calderón said Monday that he would return home early Tuesday to be on hand to deal with any fallout from the storm, and organizers of the meeting were scrambling to accommodate him.

And officials said Mr. Bush had pledged to offer financial and logistical assistance if Mr. Calderón asks for it. The United States had already dispatched a contingent of officials to help assess Mexico’s needs.

Mr. Calderón’s planned absence only did that much more to deflate expectations for the meeting here. Officials played down the likelihood that there would be any major announcements on any policy issues at a scheduled press briefing Tuesday.

Gordon D. Johndroe, the National Security Council spokesman, told reporters aboard Air Force One that they would discuss new rules to expedite border crossings after natural disasters, terrorist strikes or epidemics, to try to avoid the sorts of tie-ups that slowed border crossings and stalled commerce after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Speaking with reporters in Montebello after the meetings, Dan Fisk, the senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council, declined to elaborate on the potential agreement, saying he did not want to pre-empt an announcement presumably to be made Tuesday.

But the United States has thornier border issues with its neighbors. Mr. Fisk said that Mr. Bush “reaffirmed that we will be going ahead and implementing” the United States’ new rules requiring citizens to have passports when re-entering its borders. The Canadians have voiced concern that such rules would impede trade and tourism, but they were mandated by Congress.

Mr. Calderón has voiced even more concern about tighter border restrictions and the political pressure in the United States to crack down on illegal immigrants and their employers. Mr. Fisk said Mr. Calderón had asked Mr. Bush about the new provisions he put in place to strengthen enforcement against employers of illegal immigrants, but did not elaborate.

Mr. Calderón’s early exit on Tuesday could tighten the focus on Canada. Mr. Fisk said that Mr. Bush and Mr. Harper on Monday had also discussed Canada’s troop commitment in Afghanistan. He said that Mr. Harper affirmed that he would keep Canadian military personnel there through February 2009 but added that Mr. Harper also said he would then have to go back to Parliament to “have a decision on what the mission will be beyond February 2009.”

And Mr. Fisk said Mr. Bush and Mr. Harper discussed the dispute between Russia and Canada over the Northwest Passage that flared this month after Russia staked a claim to the seabed at the North Pole, and Canada reasserted that the passage was its sovereign territory.

“I think it’s fair to say the president came away with a far better understanding of Canada’s position,” Mr. Fisk said. “However, I will note that from the U.S. position, we continue to believe that the Northwest Passage is an international waterway, that there is international navigational rights through the Northwest Passage.”

Outside the meeting site — the Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello — people protesting the Iraq war and the trade goals of the three nations — squared off with the police, who used pepper spray and tear gas to hold them back.

[coco77]

7. I watched it ,...

and you could tell they were lying, bush even acted liked he was surprised or that no one should ask him about it, just like he does with every issue that will affect us...

[Selatius]

8. In theory, free trade looks good on paper, but in life, it's an absolute disaster

Unless labor representatives and representative of citizens and environmentalists are allowed a seat at the negotiation table, then free trade agreements will forever be flawed because industrialists and bankers will have an unchallenged voice in determining the language of the agreement, and they don't care about ordinary people or the environment.