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Topic: CAFTA

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	Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The transfer of authority contained in CAFTA to various supranational and UN entities such as the Codex Alimentarius, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the International Labour Organization (ILO) was one of the key reasons CAFTA had been deliberated on since January 2003.
		While pro-globalization US administration officials have been pushing to pass CAFTA they only barely were able to rally key Republican members of the House to their side who opposed CAFTA on grounds of preserving national sovereignty [10].
		Ratification of CAFTA by Nicaragua coincided with the announcement of an end to a political crisis whereby the Nicaraguan Liberal and Sandinista parties ended an impeachment process of President Enrique Bolaños.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/CAFTA (1971 words)

	WILLisms.com: On The Importance Of CAFTA-DR.
		CAFTA's defeat would be a major setback for President Bush's freedom agenda in the Western Hemisphere; Democrats, beholden to big labor, are nearly unanimously against it, as some Republicans are getting squishy.
		CAFTA CAN'T BE SOLD on the TV interview circuit as the spearhead of a multilayered intelligent American design meant to permanently guide the Western Hemisphere toward the expression of U.S. objectives.
		CAFTA is, in fact, embarrassingly deferential to the sugar lobby.
	www.willisms.com /archives/2005/06/on_the_importan.html (1215 words)

	Free Trade Agreements (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-30)
		CAFTA must be approved by the U.S. Congress and by National Assemblies in the Central American countries before it becomes law.
		The Bush Administration aggressively pursued the CAFTA negotiations on a very short timeline; whereas NAFTA took more than seven years to negotiate and the FTAA has been negotiated for almost a decade, CAFTA was completed in one calendar year, with limited civil society or Congressional participation.
		CAFTA is the first “sub-regional” agreement to be negotiated between such unequal trading partners, where the combined GDP of Central America is equal to 0.5 percent of U.S. CAFTA would require market liberalization for the majority of goods and services in Central America—including agriculture, manufacturing, public services and government procurement.
	www.wola.org /economic/cafta.htm (494 words)

	CAFTA’s Weak Labor Rights Protections: Why the Present Accord Should be Opposed, (Background Briefing, March 2004)
		A renegotiated CAFTA should ensure that failure to establish “procedural guarantees” for the enforcement of domestic labor laws is subject to dispute settlement procedures and the possibility of fines or sanctions.
		CAFTA establishes that the fine is to be “expended at the direction of the Commission” for “appropriate” labor initiatives in the violating country, yet contains no explicit safeguards to ensure that this occurs.
		CAFTA should include strong, enforceable labor rights protections to compel countries to take such steps and create a free trade area in which the rights of workers producing goods for export are upheld.
	www.hrw.org /english/docs/2004/03/09/usint8099.htm (2496 words)

	CAFTA
		CAFTA, which covers virtually every type of trade and commercial exchange between these countries and the United States, immediately eliminates all tariffs on 80 percent of U.S. manufactured goods, with the balance to be phased out over a few years.
		A significantly large portion of the anticipated economic benefits of CAFTA are expected to accrue from the liberalization of trade in services and the opening up of government procurement.
		A tenth of the CAFTA countries’ total worldwide imports, and a fifth of all goods they import from the United States (over $3 billion a year), are made in Florida.
	www.caftaintelligencecenter.com (464 words)

	FairEconomy.org - What is CAFTA?
		The U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is a free trade agreement now being negotiated between the United States and five Central American nations: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
		CAFTA is a stepping stone toward the FTAA, a trade agreement covering the entire western hemisphere (except Cuba).
		CAFTA’s weak, totally unenforced labor and environmental standards are a dangerous precedent for the FTAA which will create the largest free trade area in the world.
	www.faireconomy.org /activist/fair_trade/CAFTA/What_is_CAFTA.html (343 words)

	CAFTA: Exporting American Jobs & Industry (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-30)
		Congressional ratification of CAFTA is coveted by the White House, its political allies in Central America, and politically connected corporate interests who stand to profit from outsourcing production to low-wage nations in the region.
		CAFTA is a critical steppingstone toward creation of a 34-nation Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), an embryonic regional government modeled after the socialistic European Union.
		Promoters of CAFTA clearly perceive the pact to be a form of foreign aid to "emerging democracies" in Central America — tacitly recognizing that it wouldn't result in genuine free trade, but rather a huge transfer of wealth from the U.S. to the region.
	www.stoptheftaa.org /artman/publish/article_279.shtml (2881 words)

	Obsidian Wings: CAFTA
		CAFTA flouts this global consensus and is widely understood to be part of the Bush administration's larger systematic effort to undermine the WTO process -- that is, to use bilateral trade agreements to bully small developing countries into waiving their rights under the WTO's intellectual property rules.
		CAFTA also allows countries "the right to exercise discretion with respect to investigatory, prosecutorial, regulatory, and compliance matters," contradicting the previous article and telling the countries that 'you are supposed to enforce your environmental laws, but only if you want to.'
		CAFTA limits any fines for failures to enforce environmental laws to a max $15 million annually, while sanctions for breaches of commercial provisions are unlimited.
	obsidianwings.blogs.com /obsidian_wings/2005/06/cafta.html (8109 words)

	CAFTA Thumb Screws
		CAFTA is also a necessary step towards creating a Free Trade Area of the Americas.
		Once countries like Nicaragua sign up to the CAFTA agreement, Munchausen-syndrome claims like those from George W. Bush's business associates in Harken Energy will be yet another weapon to intimidate impoverished national governments into giving multinationals what they want, backed up with the political, economic and military might of the United States.
		Ratification of the CAFTA deal whose final details will be worked out in December this year is vital for US multinationals to be able to compete on preferential terms against their European rivals.
	www.dissidentvoice.org /Articles8/Solo_CAFTA.htm (2794 words)

	NOW. Politics & Economy. The Debate over the Central American Free Trade Act \| PBS
		CAFTA's backers were taken by surprise when in late February 2005, the usually pro-free trade National Association of State Departments of Agriculture voted to take a stand against CAFTA.
		CAFTA would provide regional garment-makers — and their U.S. suppliers of fabric and yarn — a critical advantage in competing with Asia.
		Labor: CAFTA is a step backward for organized labor in Central America, unlike earlier trade agreements it does not require compliance with international labor standards.
	www.pbs.org /now/politics/caftadebate.html (1113 words)

	Think Progress » CAFTA: A New Front in the War on Terror?
		In a personal appearance before the vote began, the president stressed a novel point: CAFTA is a front in the war on terror.
		Bush spoke for an hour, lawmakers said, stressing the national security implications of CAFTA, which are rooted in the concern that growing anti-American sentiment in Latin America would flourish if the United States refused to open its markets wider to the nations that negotiated the pact.
		CAFTA will destabilise those democracies, because I think most of the Central American nations know that the US does not look out for them, except as cheap workers.
	thinkprogress.org /2005/07/29/cafta-a-new-front-in-the-war-on-terror (2128 words)

	CAFTA: Central American Free Trade Agreement
		CAFTA's passage was bought by an outrageous amount of pork barrel politics, and fake side deals, and unbelievable pressure from the Bush Administration.
		CAFTA was supposed to be implemented by January 1, 2006, yet this date has passed.
		CAFTA will undermine workers rights, drive countless family farmers off their land, and expose communities throughout Central America and the U.S. to privatization of essential public services like water, electricity, health care and education.
	www.globalexchange.org /campaigns/ftaa/cafta/index.html (415 words)

	CAFTA and Dietary Supplements
		CAFTA, like the World Trade Organization, may serve as a forum for restricting or even banning dietary supplements in the U.S. The Codex Alimentarius Commission, organized by the United Nations in the 1960s, is charged with “harmonizing” food and supplement rules between all nations of the world.
		Passage of CAFTA does not mean your supplements will be outlawed immediately, but it will mean that another international trade body will have a say over whether American supplement regulations meet international standards.
		CAFTA means less freedom for you, and more control for bureaucrats who do not answer to American voters.
	www.house.gov /paul/tst/tst2005/tst071805.htm (528 words)

	Senate Approves Cafta (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-30)
		The controversial legislation -- which eliminates tariffs between the U.S., Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua -- was passed by a vote of 54 to 45, with most Republicans voting for the legislation and most Democrats voting against.
		"CAFTA empowers American businesses to contend in the global marketplace, and ensures commerce flows fairly and freely between member nations," said Frist in a statement.
		While 80% of Cafta nations already enter the U.S. duty free, exports are taxed significantly, according to the trade group.
	www.inc.com /criticalnews/articles/200507/cafta.html (381 words)

	CAFTA - Trade - Sierra Club
		In the name of fostering commerce, CAFTA would put communities at risk by setting sharp limits on governments' authority to protect public health and the environment.
		CAFTA covers areas ranging from agriculture, services, intellectual property rights, investment and food safety to name a few.
		CAFTA and the proposed FTAA would not only give foreign investors new powers to challenge community and environmental safeguards, but also could force governments to weaken environmental standards covering a wide-range of service industries.
	www.sierraclub.com /trade/cafta (435 words)

	Public Citizen \| CAFTA - CAFTA: Part of the FTAA Puzzle
		The Central American Free Trade Agreement (known as CAFTA) is an expansion of NAFTA to five Central American nations (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua), and the Dominican Republic.
		CAFTA is a piece in the FTAA jigsaw puzzle, and is based on the same failed neoliberal NAFTA model, which has caused the "race to the bottom" in labor and environmental standards and promotes privatization and deregulation of key public services.
		Due to strong resistance by several of the CAFTA countries’ parliaments who, when confronted by the reality of having to make the far-reaching changes to public health and other domestic laws required by the agreement are reluctant to actually implement the deal, the Bush administration was forced to delay the planned Jan. 1, 2006 implementation.
	www.citizen.org /trade/cafta (358 words)

	CNN.com - House narrowly approves CAFTA - Jul 28, 2005
		With Democrats nearly united in opposition to CAFTA, Bush took the unusual step of coming to Capitol Hill in person Wednesday to lobby members of his own party, painting the trade pact as a national security issue.
		While the amount of trade involved in CAFTA is small in comparison to the overall U.S. economy, the pact ran into strong opposition from organized labor, which pressed its Democratic allies to vote against it.
		Bush's painting of CAFTA as a national security issue "clearly resonated with members of the House," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
	www.cnn.com /2005/POLITICS/07/28/house.cafta (976 words)

	The Trouble With CAFTA
		CAFTA is a bad deal, one that promises to extend the harmful impacts of NAFTA to Mexico's weaker southern neighbors.
		CAFTA stipulations defending intellectual property threaten to move AIDS treatment beyond the reach of many Central Americans in need.
		CAFTA, once presumed dead, is alive and functioning, thanks to White House political sorcery.
	www.thenation.com /doc/20040202/engler (1056 words)

	Sirotablog: Don't Be Fooled By Last-Minute CAFTA Pitches
		The pact is expected to come up for a vote in the next few weeks - and so far, it appears that lawmakers of both parties have the votes to defeat this atrocity.
		The first thing I would suggest a Democrat do before supporting CAFTA is go pick up a copy of John R. MacArthur's "The Selling of Free Trade." Short of that, take a look at these three bullets about how dishonest the key pro-CAFTA myths are:
		CAFTA will be a key test for Democrats.
	www.davidsirota.com /2005/04/dont-be-fooled-by-last-minute-cafta.html (837 words)

	CAFTA
		Provisions in CAFTA Restrict Access to Medicines: Latin American and Caribbean Countries Urged Not to Include Such Provisions in FTAA.
		CAFTA IP provisions and their effect on access to medicines.
		CAFTA friends, foes state their case on free trade deal - Central America pact goes to House after OK by Senate.
	www.cptech.org /ip/health/trade/cafta (1671 words)

	Labor tells Dems: Vote for CAFTA at your peril (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-30)
		But on Friday, Bean became the sixth Democrat to announce publicly her support for the agreement, and unions said that Matheson and Moore may be leaning toward a yes vote.
		In a statement, a spokesman for Moore said, “Rep. Moore is an independent leader for the people of Kansas, doing what is right and responsible for his constituents and the country as a whole.
		CAFTA is expected to come to the House floor later this week amid intense lobbying from both sides.
	hillnews.com /thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/072705/labor.html (876 words)

	CAFTA's Covert Opponent: China
		China’s support is the main reason that the tyrannical regimes in North Korea and Burma have not collapsed from their sheer economic incompetence.
		If anti-democratic juntas were ever to launch coups in the Western Hemisphere again, CAFTA would greatly enhance the power of the United States’ opposition to them, counterbalancing China’s growing influence in the region.
		It is perhaps a minor footnote in the congressional debate over CAFTA that all the countries involved maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan and not with China.
	www.heritage.org /Research/TradeandForeignAid/wm778.cfm (653 words)

	Stop CAFTA Campaign: Grand Rapids, Michigan
		The CAFTA vote has featured aggressive efforts by supporters to counter various concerns about free trade on Capitol Hill, and legislation addressing Chinese trading practices is moving in tandem with the CAFTA implementation bill.
		On worker protections, CAFTA takes a step backward from existing labor enforcement mechanisms, namely the threat of trade sanctions. In addition, my other primary concern is that the investor protection provisions similar to those in NAFTA, which can undermine local environmental regulations, were not sufficiently corrected.
		Most striking, when asked, “Suppose the US government, as part of CAFTA, were to commit to substantially increase federal spending on programs to help American workers who lose their jobs, and to make sure that Central American countries enforce health and safety standards for their workers” then support for CAFTA jumped to 65%.
	www.mediamouse.org /cafta (2751 words)

	What's At Stake: Stop CAFTA!
		Workers and their allies are fighting to stop the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), signed May 28, 2004, by the United States and six Central American countries.
		Although these mock mark-ups cannot stop CAFTA, the symbolic impact of one of these committees voting no on CAFTA would be enormous.
		If approved, CAFTA would eliminate tariffs from the United States, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
	www.unionvoice.org /campaign/NoCAFTA/explanation (315 words)

	Kucinich Floor Statements - Workers' Rights
		We should renegotiate a new CAFTA so that we can negotiate and trade more with our neighbors on terms that will help lift up workers in all six of the NAFTA countries and in the United States.
		I rise tonight to join him in objecting to CAFTA and in pointing out to the people why it is so important that CAFTA be defeated.
		I would summarize by echoing what he said, that as the CAFTA countdown, as CAFTA is buried at the end of this month, the 1-year anniversary of CAFTA, it is important as we defeat CAFTA that we look at all of those issues that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr.
	www.kucinich.us /floor_speeches/work_cafta17may.php (2141 words)

	Bush, Biz Play 'China Card' in Opening Push for CAFTA
		Nevertheless, she pointed out "CAFTA is utterly devoid of compassion and opportunity for those who need it the most: The 37 million Central Americans struggling in poverty and the millions of hard-working immigrants in this nation most vulnerable to exploitation and layoffs."
		The solution to the Chinese threat is not CAFTA "because Central America cannot lower its wages to Chinese levels and shouldn't aim to," Levinson added.
		Citing rampant labor abuses in the CAFTA nations, Levinson retorted: "As long as workers' rights in Central America are violated with impunity, the rights of workers in the U.S. are at risk.
	www.truthout.org /cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/36/10454 (1201 words)

	CAFTA undermines immigration laws (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-30)
		If CAFTA is approved, Congress' "exclusive" authority to regulate immigration policy will be subjugated to the whim of international tribunals and trade panels ---- in much the same way that Congress' once supreme constitutional authority to "regulate commerce with foreign nations," has already been largely ceded to the WTO.
		Now that might not be possible while they are in session, and the CAFTA vote will happen before they leave, but take a group of people with you who agree, and go to the office of your representative and tell them all the things that make CAFTA an attack on our sovereignty.
		NATA had CAFTA and future agreements along with the formation of a similar Asian formation, a single currency, and the future melding of the Americas, European, and Asian groups into one written right into it and I couldn't get anyone to listen.
	www.freerepublic.com /focus/f-news/1445129/posts (3405 words)

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