Hidden from public view, NAFTA expands

On the weekend of Fri., Apr. 20, representatives of every nation in the Western hemisphere (except Cuba) will be in Quebec City for the Summit of the Americas (SOA), "protected" from protesters by both a 12-foot wall that circles the downtown area and by the largest police force amassed in the history of Canada. At the summit, they will attempt to finalize the details of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which will extend the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to all of the Americas. The FTAA, dubbed "NAFTA on steroids," will create a "free trade" area by "liberalizing" trade and privatizing essential government services. An eclectic group of about 50,000 protesters will be in Quebec to make their voices heard.

SETH TOBOCMAN/YH

By even the most conservative accounts, NAFTA has failed in what it set out to do—improve the lives of citizens in the United States, Canada, and Mexico through "free trade." After seven years of NAFTA, 600,000 U.S. jobs have gone to Mexico, while the real wage of the average Mexican worker has fallen by 29 percent. Nations have been forced to repeal public health laws that are deemed "unfair barriers to trade." NAFTA has not been good for workers, and it has not been good for the environment. Yet countries and corporations throughout the Western Hemisphere wish to extend it to 31 more countries, creating the largest free trade zone ever.

Like NAFTA, the FTAA seeks to "liberalize" international trade by removing all barriers to trade (e.g. tariffs, trade, and environmental laws) in the hemisphere, allowing capital and corporations to move freely across borders. It seeks to "liberalize trade in services," easing the way for corporations to control such basic services as education, health care, and even water supplies. Governments will be prohibited from giving preference to local businesses over foreign businesses, no matter how their economy and unemployment rates are faring. As a result, the FTAA will limit a country's ability to develop its own industries.

Corporations are for-profit organizations, and labor and environmental standards are not good for the bottom line. When companies are allowed to move across borders without any "barriers," a "race to the bottom" ensues: countries are forced to vie for the favor of corporations by subsidizing costs and lowering (or ignoring) labor and environmental standards.

The FTAA protects "intellectual property rights" such as copyright laws and patents for commodities like seeds and drugs. By this protection, countries like Brazil that have exploding AIDS populations and cannot afford name-brand American drugs would be penalized for making generic versions of the drugs to treat its sick.

The FTAA will likely allow corporations to sue entire national governments for passing legislation unfavorable to trade—everything from minimum wage laws to bans on known carcinogens. Under NAFTA, the Canadian company Methanex has filed for damages of almost $1 billion against the state of California for banning a chemical called MTBE. Used in gasoline, MTBE was banned in California after rendering many sources of water nonpotable. NAFTA considered this restriction an "unfair barrier to trade." A version of Chapter 11 of NAFTA, which allows for these kinds of suits, is expected to appear in the FTAA treaty.

I say "is expected to" because the text for the treaty has yet to be released to the public. Only the trade ministers and corporate representatives who will be gathering in Quebec have seen it, and they're hiding it from even our own congressional representatives, who will vote whether or not to adopt it. Yet if President George W. Bush, DC '68, is granted the "fast-track" authority that he seeks, Congress will not be able to amend the FTAA before voting on it. "Free trade" and democracy supposedly go hand-in-hand, yet the process being used to implement the FTAA treaty seeks none of the public approval requisite to democracy.

But apparently in Quebec democracy and the police state go hand-in-hand. Police have learned their lessons from the Battle in Seattle of 1999, when the World Trade Organization could not meet due to the masses of non-violent activists being tear-gassed as their bodies blocked the streets. They have vacated local prisons, erected a wall in the Old City to fence-in the delegates, and are already turning American activists away from the border in the name of their country's "economic interests."

In a democracy, leaders should take protests of 50,000 people as a sign that they are doing something wrong. Our representatives shouldn't feel so dire a need to protect themselves from their constituents that they put up a wall and call in the guards. They haven't gotten the message. We're going to try harder.

On Mon., Apr. 2, activists throughout the hemisphere will take action against local corporations, demanding that the text of the treaty be released to the public. During the Summit, activists and union members will be holding a massive rally in Quebec. Delegations from New Haven, composed of labor unions, students, and the homeless, will be there, fighting for the democracy, economic stability, and justice that we all too often take for granted.

Abigail Vladeck, BR '04, is a member of the coalition formed to fight the FTAA.

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