"Free trade" not what it seems

by Denise Winebrenner Edwards

If you are a K-mart shopper or a rancher in Montana; a mum and 
dad wondering about what the kids will do once they finish 
school; or a retiree, worried about pension and health care, the 
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is not for you.

Trade is not one of those issues folks talk about during the 
commercial breaks of Monday Night Football, but it affects 
everything from clothes to prescription drugs to the frustrating 
phone menus encountered when tracking down a manufacturer's 
warranty.

"Negotiated behind closed doors with little citizen input but 
plenty of suggestions from corporations, FTAA is yet another 
example of the kind of free market fundamentalism that has 
created a global race to the bottom that erodes environmental 
protection, workers' livelihoods and human rights", according to 
San Francisco-based Global Exchange. The Global Exchange was 
founded in 1988 to monitor and organise around international 
trade and environmental issues.

Since 1988, fair trade coalitions have popped up across the 
country. Most are union-based and bring together 
environmentalists, small businesses, farmers and elected 
officials. In 1999, the streets of Seattle, then hosting the 
World Trade Organisation meetings, saw thousands of "turtles and 
Teamsters" demanding fair trade, not free trade.

Last February, the AFL-CIO called on workers to oppose the FTAA 
and urged their participation in demonstrations against the FTAA 
meeting in Miami on November 20-21. "The ministerial in Miami 
(the FTAA meeting of representatives from all Western Hemisphere 
countries, except Cuba), and the elections in 2004 provide 
important opportunities to defeat the flawed FTAA" , the 13-
million-member organisation said.

The Northern American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) lifted many 
trade restrictions between the US, Canada and Mexico and has been 
in effect since 1993, so critics of FTAA are not just studying 
the fine print of a complicated trade agreement. FTAA is based on 
NAFTA and it expands the treaty across the entire Western 
Hemisphere.

FTAA is just another way to spell layoff and plant closure for 
working families. NAFTA cost the jobs of 765,000 working US 
families. When workers found new jobs, they earned two percent 
less than their previous jobs. In Mexico, workers' wages fell by 
21 percent and, according to a study at Cornell University, the 
jobs of 280,000 Mexican workers vanished.

The treaty not only left unemployment and wage cuts in its wake, 
it left toxic waste and pollution along the US/Mexico border 
where hepatitis and birth defects have skyrocketed.

Bethany Weidner is part of a caravan that left Washington State 
in September. In her online journal, she reports an interview 
with a rancher in Meadows, South Dakota. In a video, planned for 
showing in Miami, the rancher says as a result of NAFTA, the 
price of beef dropped from 87 cents a pound to 38 cents, far 
below the cost of production. FTAA, he says, will only benefit 
corporations, drive ranchers off their land, and destroy small 
farming communities. Steelworkers are on the bus making its way 
to Florida, as are human rights activists and environmentalists. 
There are rallies, meetings and potluck suppers all along the 
7000-kilometre trip.

In its current form, FTAA contains language that would 
"liberalise" services, including public schools, energy, health 
care, postal delivery and water utilities. "Liberalise" in this 
context means privatisation. Whereas NAFTA only applied to three 
countries, FTAA would allow private corporations to raid public 
services in 34 countries.

The Rainforest Action Network, Global Exchange and the Student 
Environmental Coalition left George Washington University in 
Washington, DC, on October 25 in a "Stop FTAA/On to Miami" 
roadshow. Their 10 scheduled stops, from New England to 
Pennsylvania, are aimed at building understanding of a 
complicated issue and mobilising students and professors to come 
to Miami.

Reverend Lucy Hitchcock Seek, of the Unitarian Church in Miami, 
is one of hundreds organising to greet activists as they roll 
into Miami. "We don't have economic democracy in this world", she 
told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, "because corporations have 
taken more and more of the power to the point where, in some 
cases, they have more power than nations. The march in Miami . is 
our chance to say: 'This needs to change. It's affecting our 
lives, our children, our land and our souls'."

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People's Weekly World