World News Report: Next week, the George W. Bush Institute, the public policy arm of the former president’s library in Dallas, will launch a North America Scorecard with an assessment that the North American Free Trade Agreement has been a boon to the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Gerardo Esquivel offers up a slightly different point of view, specifically that Mexico has not done as well as the other nations.
The MexicoBlog of the CIP Americas Program monitors and analyzes international press on Mexico with a focus on the US-backed War on Drugs in Mexico and the struggle in Mexico to strengthen the rule of law, justice and protection of human rights. Relevant political developments in both countries are also covered.
Showing posts with label North America Free Trade Agreement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label North America Free Trade Agreement. Show all posts
Nov 3, 2015
Jan 9, 2015
Democrats Step Up Efforts to Block Obama’s Trade Agenda
ED: This article is important to Mexico as well. As a member of the TPP, Mexico would automatically face the NAFTA-plus or what I have called the NAFTA plus PEMEX scenario of job loss and displacement and massive resource grabs. Obama who ran in 2008 on a platform criticizing NAFTA has become progressives worst enemy on trade issues today. He is now clashing with th Democratic Party over whether to allow the anti-democratic fast track to finish the TPP.
New York Times: President Obama is facing opposition from fellow Democrats to one of his top priorities: winning the power to negotiate international trade agreements and speed them through Congress.
As Mr. Obama’s team works privately to line up support for the so-called trade promotion authority, a coalition of Democratic lawmakers and activists from organized labor, environmental, religious and civil rights groups is stepping up efforts to stop him. Read more.
New York Times: President Obama is facing opposition from fellow Democrats to one of his top priorities: winning the power to negotiate international trade agreements and speed them through Congress.
As Mr. Obama’s team works privately to line up support for the so-called trade promotion authority, a coalition of Democratic lawmakers and activists from organized labor, environmental, religious and civil rights groups is stepping up efforts to stop him. Read more.
Jul 8, 2013
The Free-Trade Charade
NOTE: In the Americas Program we have been involved in analyzing and monitoring the impact of free trade agreements since the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the early nineties, and the movements against imposing a global corporate agenda in the World Trade Organization--a battle largely won. Now the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) threatens to impose that agenda on a huge swath of the world, including Mexico.
In this editorial, Nobel Laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz explains why this would be such a giant step backwards, especially for developing countries. We have to ask ourselves, why do the leaders of these countries--including Mexico, which requested incorporation in advanced negotiations where it did not even participate--agree to conditions that put them at a disadvantage in meeting their basic obligations to their people? The answer is unfortunately fairly clear: the leaders represent the interests of a narrow, now transnational, elite and what happens to the majority does not overly concern them. This is why citizens are organizing against the TPP. One of the biggest problems, as Stiglitz points out, is the U.S. government. The terms it imposes in the agreement and, as he puts it, its "commitment to a lack of transparency" has shrouded the whole deal in secrecy and made open debate and opposition nearly impossible. To find out more about the opposition in your area, contact: http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/ . Ed. Laura Carlsen
Project Syndicate. By Joseph E. Stiglitz. Though nothing has come of the World Trade Organization’s Doha Development Round of global trade negotiations since they were launched almost a dozen years ago, another round of talks is in the works. But this time the negotiations will not be held on a global, multilateral basis; rather, two huge regional agreements – one transpacific, and the other transatlantic – are to be negotiated. Are the coming talks likely to be more successful?
In this editorial, Nobel Laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz explains why this would be such a giant step backwards, especially for developing countries. We have to ask ourselves, why do the leaders of these countries--including Mexico, which requested incorporation in advanced negotiations where it did not even participate--agree to conditions that put them at a disadvantage in meeting their basic obligations to their people? The answer is unfortunately fairly clear: the leaders represent the interests of a narrow, now transnational, elite and what happens to the majority does not overly concern them. This is why citizens are organizing against the TPP. One of the biggest problems, as Stiglitz points out, is the U.S. government. The terms it imposes in the agreement and, as he puts it, its "commitment to a lack of transparency" has shrouded the whole deal in secrecy and made open debate and opposition nearly impossible. To find out more about the opposition in your area, contact: http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/ . Ed. Laura Carlsen
Project Syndicate. By Joseph E. Stiglitz. Though nothing has come of the World Trade Organization’s Doha Development Round of global trade negotiations since they were launched almost a dozen years ago, another round of talks is in the works. But this time the negotiations will not be held on a global, multilateral basis; rather, two huge regional agreements – one transpacific, and the other transatlantic – are to be negotiated. Are the coming talks likely to be more successful?
The Doha Round was torpedoed by the United States’ refusal to eliminate agricultural subsidies – a sine qua non
for any true development round, given that 70% of those in the
developing world depend on agriculture directly or indirectly. The US
position was truly breathtaking, given that the WTO had already judged
that America’s cotton subsidies – paid to fewer than 25,000 rich farmers
– were illegal.
America’s response was to bribe Brazil, which had brought the
complaint, not to pursue the matter further, leaving in the lurch
millions of poor cotton farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and India, who
suffer from depressed prices because of America’s largesse to its
wealthy farmers. Read More...
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