Peru NAFTA Expansion Bill Now in US Congress - We Need Your Voice!

[cali]

Written by Public Citizen
Thursday, 04 October 2007
Source: Public Citizen

In Brief: Tell Congress again that we don't want a NAFTA
expansion to Peru - write your representative now!

The Bush administration has just sent the official Peru "free trade" agreement (FTA) legislation to Congress. Under Fast Track procedures, this means that this latest Bush NAFTA expansion must come to a vote within 60 days - most likely this month!

Opposition is building in Congress, but unfortunately some powerful Democratic congressional leaders have begun to really pressure their colleagues to vote wrong on this NAFTA expansion.

<snip>

When some Democratic trade leaders made a deal in May with the Bush administration to revive the Peru NAFTA expansion that your hard work had derailed last year, we held out hope that opposition to the deal by a majority of congressional Democrats would prevent it from ever coming to a vote.

Unfortunately, a vote is now imminent. And the pressure is building. So we need to make sure that this vote shows once and for all that the NAFTA expansion agenda MUST be junked.

Not one U.S. labor, environmental, Latino civil rights, faith, consumer, or anti-poverty group supports this deal. In the last few weeks those allies have been joined by Peruvian-American, immigrants' rights, faith groups and more saying that the FTA is going to dramatically hurt Peru, and thus increase pressures on small farmers to attempt migration to the United States. Additionally, Oxfam bluntly told Congress that the Peru FTA will "undermine development and poverty reduction in Peru."

<snip>

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/927/68/


I'm not familiar with this website, but a quick perusal seems to indicate that it's a very good one when it comes to Latin American affairs.

We need to make sure our reps do NOT endorse this. It's been derailed once before; we can make sure it gets derailed again.

[Robbien]

1. Steny Hoyer and the DLC/NewDems are supporting this

and of course the GOP will vote yes.

Unless the Progressive Dems hang together and try to stop the right wing of the Democratic party, Peru is a goner.

[cali]

2. Well, that's why we should all be

calling our reps, particularly if we have reps who belong to the PC.

[cali]

3. kick. call 'em. call 'em. call 'em. n/t

[arcos]

4. Costa Rica will vote on CAFTA tomorrow...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1983530

If CAFTA is defeated in Costa Rica (as I hope and polls indicate), all pending trade agreements in the US would be in jeopardy.

Democratic heavyweights, including Pelosi, Reid, Rangel, Levin, Sanders, and a few others have been fighting the Bush administration's scare tactics, where they have been intimidating Costa Rican voters. This could be huge.

Interesting article here: http://news.monstersandcritics.com/business/news/article_1362926.php/ANALYSIS_US_policy_at_stake_in_Costa_Rica

[cali]

5. Yes. I'm really, really hoping for a resounding defeat

tomorrow in Costa Rica. I believe that's coming.

[Breeze54]

6. "The Secret Trade Deal of 2007"

SECRET TRADE DEAL: Report Shows Bush/Dem Pact Designed to Let Big Business Evade U.S. Taxes

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/secret-trade-deal-report_b_62998.html

David Sirota
Posted September 4, 2007



As Congress reconvenes this week, K Street and a handful of Democratic congressional leaders are gearing up to pass lobbyist-written trade pacts with Peru, Panama, South Korea and Columbia - the group of pacts known as The Secret Trade Deal of 2007, originally announced on May 10, 2007. Over the summer, the Bush White House led "campaign-style" events to pressure more Democrats to support the deals, despite Democrats' 2006 campaign promises to oppose these job-killing pacts. That lobbying campaign is now being backed up by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - and the pressure seems to be working. Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D) announcing that his top priority will be ramming these deals through Congress over the objections of labor, environmental, human rights, anti-poverty and consumer protection groups - as well as many rank-and-file lawmakers in his own party. The opposition to The Secret Trade Deal of 2007 may, however, find renewed vigor following a new report showing how one of the least discussed pacts in the deal - the one with Panama - includes language designed to allow many of the largest corporations to hide income in tax havens and avoid paying U.S. taxes.

Here is today's update.

BREAKING - PANAMA DEAL'S FINE PRINT DESIGNED TO HELP BIG BUSINESS EVADE U.S. TAXES: In a stunning report found http://www.taxjustice-usa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=119">here and/or http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2007/08/indispensable-r.html">here, Peter Riggs of the Forum on Democracy & Trade finds that the language of the proposed Panama Free Trade Agreement "includes provisions that would allow subsidiaries of U.S. corporations, incorporated in a tax haven destination with minimal disclosure requirements, to use an ad-hoc international legal process to challenge laws passed by elected officials in the United States."

more........

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Charlie Rangel's name keeps coming up about this one.