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California-Nevada MFSA Chapter News MFSA Chapter Garnishes Support for Proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas BE IT RESOLVED that The California-Nevada Annual Conference:
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the California-Nevada Annual Conference calls on its churches and church members to:
Background Information on the Proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) The theological rationale of this resolution is based:
The Free Trade Area of the Americas: The US is involved in negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a free trade agreement that would, in effect, extend the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean (excluding Cuba). It would also expand the scope of trade regulation into new sectors of these countries’ economies, such as the services sector, creating the most comprehensive, binding trade agreement that the world has ever seen. NAFTA has failed to live up to it promises of bringing economic benefits to the majority of people in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. In the U.S., it has led to the loss of tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. In Mexico, there has been a reduction of social services, lower wages, higher unemployment, greater inequity, greater poverty, the loss of many small farms and Indigenous communal lands, increasing environmental destruction and inhumane working conditions in Maquiladoras, increasing child labor, and greater social unrest. The conditions of life for millions of people have deteriorated since NAFTA was adopted. As in other “free trade” agreements, the FTAA would expand the rights of corporations and limit the rights of member governments to regulate trade and domestic policies. Its rules setting down these corporate rights and government restrictions would be based on the rules of NAFTA, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the defeated Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI). Like these other trade agreements, the FTAA has no safeguards for the environment, workers, human rights, health, public safety, or social services Under the FTAA’s investor-state dispute resolution rules, investors (that is, corporations) would have the right to directly sue federal, state, or local governments through an FTAA Tribunal for having laws that get in the way of corporate profits, whether these laws are environmental, food safety, labor, or human rights standards. If corporations win such suits, “defendant” governments would have to pay “plaintiff” corporations for lost profits that corporations could have made in the past, present, and/or future without these laws. This would make it harder for governments to make or keep laws to protect the general public, the environment, or those who are vulnerable. Under a similar rule in NAFTA, corporations have brought suits against the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The FTAA’s trade in services rules would give corporations the right to compete for and to control government services in any member country. In other words, services that are now provided or regulated by governments would be privatized, deregulated, and open to being taken over by foreign corporations, including education, health care, libraries, museums, transportation, power, water, prisons, social services, etc. Many of the governments of Latin America have already privatized such services as part of their Structural Adjustment Programs under pressure from the IMF and World Bank, and this would be locked in by the FTAA. The FTAA’s government procurement rules would give corporations from any of these countries the right to bid competitively on all government contracts, services, and goods. Its national treatment rules would give foreign corporations the same rights as domestic companies, and would prohibit governments from giving preferential treatment to local businesses, farmers, or service providers. The FTAA’s elimination of performance requirements would prohibit governments from putting conditions on corporations to benefit local communities or workers; for instance, governments could not require corporations to use local labor or purchase goods from local suppliers. The FTAA provisions related to technical barriers to trade would “harmonize” regulations that affect corporate behavior by creating a ceiling above which they could not be raised but no floor below which they could fall, thus triggering a “race to the bottom.” These rules would also mandate the identification and elimination of any “unnecessary” non-tariff barriers to trade, such as labor, human rights, environmental, and public safety standards that could affect trade, in line with the WTO. The FTAA’s Agreement on Agriculture would set constraints on government policies related to food safety and animal and plant health, including the regulation of pesticides and genetically engineered foods. These sanitary and phytosanitary provisions would prevent governments from setting food safety standards based on the precautionary principle, which allows regulation based on risk of harm. Instead, governments would have to prove that there is scientific certainty of harm and use the least trade restrictive regulations available. The Bush Administration is seeking “Fast Track” authority, which is now being called “Presidential Trade Negotiating Authority,” in order to gain easy passage of the FTAA and future trade agreements. PTNA would require Congress to pass trade legislation without amendments or adequate time for debate, simply with an up or down vote. This would limit public input into the process and circumvent Congress’ authority as the body that is soley responsible for regulating trade, as outlined in Article 7 of the US Constitution. People are developing “fair trade” networks, through which people can purchase goods that were produced in a just and sustainable way. For instance, “fair trade coffee” is now increasingly available. Sources/Resources:
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