zero hour: nafta and mexico's agrarian collapse
Nor does the President and his cronies identify who it is that is actually benefiting from the NAFTA-TLCOM boom. According to the National Farmers Confederation or CNC, a creature of the once-ruling (71 years) PRI party and once gung-ho for the trade treaty, only 2% of all Mexican producers are sharing the largesse. The other 98%, including 3.5 million corn farmers, 85% of whom grow on five hectares or less (average U.S. corn spreads are 270 acres), have no access to the NAFTA-TLCAN market whatsoever. The big winners? About 20,000 corporate tomato growers, avocado and tropical fruit moguls, and specialty crop niche market sharpies (organic coffee -but organic anything) - plus, of course, the beer barons.
Showing posts with label nafta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nafta. Show all posts
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Thursday, June 7, 2007
expanding NAFTA:
The expansion of NAFTA into the Security and Prosperity Partnership reveals the road ahead for other nations entering into free trade agreements. It is not a road most nations -- or the U.S. public -- would take if they knew where it led.
(...) The first problem is that very few people know about this next step of "deep integration." In March 2005, Presidents George Bush, Vicente Fox and Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas launched the Security and Prosperity Partnership with a splash. ... These rules and trinational programs have profound effect on the environment, the daily lives of citizens, and the future of all three countries.
(...) Its security component represents a new and ominous form of integration, all in the name of counter-terrorism.
(...) The official U.S. web page describes the SPP as "a White House-led initiative among the United States and the two nations it borders - Canada and Mexico - to increase security and to enhance prosperity among the three countries through greater cooperation."
(...) "White House-led" is a key element.
(...) Many of the priorities of the SPP benefit only a small handful of powerful actors, such as greater patent protection (Mexico holds very few patents) and joint anti-piracy campaigns (piracy is a major employer in Mexico and benefits low-income consumers).
(...) SPP on the other hand, was born in the "global war on terror" era and reflects an inordinate emphasis on U.S. security as interpreted by the Department of Homeland Security. The head of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Mexico's Secretary of Finance Carlos Gutierrez, represent the three ministries charged with attending SPP ministerial conferences.
(...) The SPP measures to coordinate security have pressured Mexico to militarize its southern border and adopt repressive measures toward Central and South Americans presumably in transit to the United States. The false conflation of undocumented immigration with security in the United States has also led to measures that have little to do with Mexico's own national security and cause friction with friendly nations, such as the decision to require visas for citizens of Brazil and Ecuador to enter the country.
(...) Moreover, in all three countries, significant civil society movements have questioned whether the high-tech solutions advanced by Homeland Security (and that profit major military suppliers) are really the best and most resource-efficient answer to security challenges. Again, for the most part, the decisions are being made without public knowledge or consultation.
(...) Economic integration under NAFTA has led to job loss and the erosion of job security and quality in the United States, while also increasing unemployment in Mexico. Over thirteen years, the model has confirmed, rather than reversed, Mexico's status as the less-developed partner. The rise in immigration to the United States attests to the failure of NAFTA as a development mechanism. Moreover, it has not increased the U.S. competitive edge although it has delivered record profits to a few major global traders. Unfortunately for the majority, those "few" are now driving the efforts to deepen integration under the NAFTA-plus-Homeland-Security model.
(...) But to deepen integration would mean deepening the contradictions and the problems that have led most Americans to express their rejection of the free-trade model in recent polls, and that has spurred widespread public protest in Mexico and Canada.
The expansion of NAFTA into the Security and Prosperity Partnership reveals the road ahead for other nations entering into free trade agreements. It is not a road most nations -- or the U.S. public -- would take if they knew where it led.
(...) The first problem is that very few people know about this next step of "deep integration." In March 2005, Presidents George Bush, Vicente Fox and Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas launched the Security and Prosperity Partnership with a splash. ... These rules and trinational programs have profound effect on the environment, the daily lives of citizens, and the future of all three countries.
(...) Its security component represents a new and ominous form of integration, all in the name of counter-terrorism.
(...) The official U.S. web page describes the SPP as "a White House-led initiative among the United States and the two nations it borders - Canada and Mexico - to increase security and to enhance prosperity among the three countries through greater cooperation."
(...) "White House-led" is a key element.
(...) Many of the priorities of the SPP benefit only a small handful of powerful actors, such as greater patent protection (Mexico holds very few patents) and joint anti-piracy campaigns (piracy is a major employer in Mexico and benefits low-income consumers).
(...) SPP on the other hand, was born in the "global war on terror" era and reflects an inordinate emphasis on U.S. security as interpreted by the Department of Homeland Security. The head of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Mexico's Secretary of Finance Carlos Gutierrez, represent the three ministries charged with attending SPP ministerial conferences.
(...) The SPP measures to coordinate security have pressured Mexico to militarize its southern border and adopt repressive measures toward Central and South Americans presumably in transit to the United States. The false conflation of undocumented immigration with security in the United States has also led to measures that have little to do with Mexico's own national security and cause friction with friendly nations, such as the decision to require visas for citizens of Brazil and Ecuador to enter the country.
(...) Moreover, in all three countries, significant civil society movements have questioned whether the high-tech solutions advanced by Homeland Security (and that profit major military suppliers) are really the best and most resource-efficient answer to security challenges. Again, for the most part, the decisions are being made without public knowledge or consultation.
(...) Economic integration under NAFTA has led to job loss and the erosion of job security and quality in the United States, while also increasing unemployment in Mexico. Over thirteen years, the model has confirmed, rather than reversed, Mexico's status as the less-developed partner. The rise in immigration to the United States attests to the failure of NAFTA as a development mechanism. Moreover, it has not increased the U.S. competitive edge although it has delivered record profits to a few major global traders. Unfortunately for the majority, those "few" are now driving the efforts to deepen integration under the NAFTA-plus-Homeland-Security model.
(...) But to deepen integration would mean deepening the contradictions and the problems that have led most Americans to express their rejection of the free-trade model in recent polls, and that has spurred widespread public protest in Mexico and Canada.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
hilary and corporate america:
"Wages are flat." Nods of agreement. "This economy is not working!" Applause. She's not quite the rhetorical populist her husband was on the campaign trail, but she can still feel your pain. "Everything has been skewed," Clinton says, jabbing her index finger for emphasis, "to help the privileged and the powerful at the expense of everybody else!"
(...) "She's got a deeper bench of big money and corporate supporters than her competitors," says Eli Attie, a former speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore. Not only is Hillary more reliant on large donations and corporate money than her Democratic rivals, but advisers in her inner circle are closely affiliated with unionbusters, GOP operatives, conservative media and other Democratic Party antagonists.
(...) But her ties to corporate America say as much, if not more, about what she values and cast doubt on her ability and willingness to fight for the progressive policies she claims to champion. She is "running to help and restore the great middle class in our country," Wolfson says. So was Bill in 1992. He was for "putting people first." Then he entered the White House and pushed for NAFTA, signed welfare reform, consolidated the airwaves through the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (leading to Clear Channel's takeover) and cleared the mergers of mega-banks.
"Wages are flat." Nods of agreement. "This economy is not working!" Applause. She's not quite the rhetorical populist her husband was on the campaign trail, but she can still feel your pain. "Everything has been skewed," Clinton says, jabbing her index finger for emphasis, "to help the privileged and the powerful at the expense of everybody else!"
(...) "She's got a deeper bench of big money and corporate supporters than her competitors," says Eli Attie, a former speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore. Not only is Hillary more reliant on large donations and corporate money than her Democratic rivals, but advisers in her inner circle are closely affiliated with unionbusters, GOP operatives, conservative media and other Democratic Party antagonists.
(...) But her ties to corporate America say as much, if not more, about what she values and cast doubt on her ability and willingness to fight for the progressive policies she claims to champion. She is "running to help and restore the great middle class in our country," Wolfson says. So was Bill in 1992. He was for "putting people first." Then he entered the White House and pushed for NAFTA, signed welfare reform, consolidated the airwaves through the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (leading to Clear Channel's takeover) and cleared the mergers of mega-banks.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
capital gone wild:
Previous Bolivian governments had signed a flurry of bilateral investment treaties that gave foreign investors the right to bypass domestic courts and file such lawsuits through international tribunals. Morales complained that these rules made him feel like a "prisoner" in the presidential palace.
(...) The Bolivian president's predicament is a common one for political leaders around the world. They are caught in an interlocking web of rules and institutions that promote and protect foreign investment -- with little regard for the costs to democracy, the environment, or the public welfare. These increasingly controversial investor protections have become the "get out of jail free" card for corporations in the global economy. They are promoted by the World Bank and other international financial institutions, codified by bilateral investment treaties and free trade agreements, and enforced through the World Bank's arbitration court and other international tribunals.
(...) Argentina has been socked by more than 30 such claims, many of them in retaliation for measures to alleviate the pain of the country's 2002 financial meltdown. A U.S.-based gas company, for example, sued over an emergency law that froze utility rates to protect consumers from runaway inflation. The company, CMS Gas, won $133 million in compensation, money that could have compensated Argentine consumers.
(...) Ecuador is facing a $1 billion suit by Occidental Petroleum, a company widely reviled in that country for alleged human rights and environmental abuses, including using child labor to clean toxic materials, failing to repair pipeline leakages, and operating in protected indigenous lands without authorization.
(...)
In another case with disturbing human rights implications, Italian investors are targeting post-apartheid affirmative action policies in South Africa. They are suing over a law designed to redress historic racism by requiring mining companies to have 26% black ownership and 40% black management by the year 2014. These policies, the investors claim, violate protections against expropriation and discrimination in the Italy-South Africa bilateral investment treaty.
(...) Currently, there are more than 100 cases pending before the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), which decides most investor-state disputes. More than 90% have been against developing countries. Meanwhile, these rules are not delivering increased foreign investment. Tufts University researchers recently found that signing bilateral investment treaties with the United States had no effect on Latin American and Caribbean investment flows. In fact, Brazil, which has refused to sign any such deal with the United States, is by far the region's biggest recipient of U.S. investment.
(...) Canada currently faces a case in retaliation for terminating a project to transport garbage from Toronto to an abandoned open pit mine 600 kilometers (370 miles) away. To protest the mega-dump, the nearby Algonquin indigenous community joined with farmers and other local citizens in a railroad blockade that was the largest act of civil disobedience in the history of Ontario province. When the government responding by dropping the plan, it offered some compensation to the mine owners. But one U.S. investor is still using NAFTA to sue for lost potential profits.
(...) Their demand to include sweeping investor protections in the Free Trade Area of the Americas was one factor in the collapse of those negotiations, after 11 years of talks involving 34 countries.
(...) However, over the past 14 years U.S. trade officials have managed to insert excessive investor protections in trade agreements with 14 countries and in pending deals with four additional nations (as of May 1, 2007). The only exception is a 2004 U.S.-Australian deal. That country's negotiators refused to accept investor-state dispute settlement. Worldwide, these rules have proliferated through more than 2,500 bilateral investment treaties.
(...) On April 29, 2007, the leaders of Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua announced plans to withdraw from the World Bank's arbitration court. Their joint declaration stated that "(We) emphatically reject the legal, media and diplomatic pressure of some multinationals that … resist the sovereign rulings of countries, making threats and initiating suits in international arbitration." This surprise announcement will not be enough, legally, to release the three Latin American countries from the interlocking web of rules and institutions designed to shield foreign investors. Bilateral investment treaties signed by Bolivia and Venezuela would still be in force, and getting out of them could take years. Nicaragua would still be bound by the investment rules of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. And ICSID is the dominant but not the only enforcement option. Foreign investors could instead demand that their cases be heard under similar United Nations arbitration rules.
Previous Bolivian governments had signed a flurry of bilateral investment treaties that gave foreign investors the right to bypass domestic courts and file such lawsuits through international tribunals. Morales complained that these rules made him feel like a "prisoner" in the presidential palace.
(...) The Bolivian president's predicament is a common one for political leaders around the world. They are caught in an interlocking web of rules and institutions that promote and protect foreign investment -- with little regard for the costs to democracy, the environment, or the public welfare. These increasingly controversial investor protections have become the "get out of jail free" card for corporations in the global economy. They are promoted by the World Bank and other international financial institutions, codified by bilateral investment treaties and free trade agreements, and enforced through the World Bank's arbitration court and other international tribunals.
(...) Argentina has been socked by more than 30 such claims, many of them in retaliation for measures to alleviate the pain of the country's 2002 financial meltdown. A U.S.-based gas company, for example, sued over an emergency law that froze utility rates to protect consumers from runaway inflation. The company, CMS Gas, won $133 million in compensation, money that could have compensated Argentine consumers.
(...) Ecuador is facing a $1 billion suit by Occidental Petroleum, a company widely reviled in that country for alleged human rights and environmental abuses, including using child labor to clean toxic materials, failing to repair pipeline leakages, and operating in protected indigenous lands without authorization.
(...)
In another case with disturbing human rights implications, Italian investors are targeting post-apartheid affirmative action policies in South Africa. They are suing over a law designed to redress historic racism by requiring mining companies to have 26% black ownership and 40% black management by the year 2014. These policies, the investors claim, violate protections against expropriation and discrimination in the Italy-South Africa bilateral investment treaty.
(...) Currently, there are more than 100 cases pending before the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), which decides most investor-state disputes. More than 90% have been against developing countries. Meanwhile, these rules are not delivering increased foreign investment. Tufts University researchers recently found that signing bilateral investment treaties with the United States had no effect on Latin American and Caribbean investment flows. In fact, Brazil, which has refused to sign any such deal with the United States, is by far the region's biggest recipient of U.S. investment.
(...) Canada currently faces a case in retaliation for terminating a project to transport garbage from Toronto to an abandoned open pit mine 600 kilometers (370 miles) away. To protest the mega-dump, the nearby Algonquin indigenous community joined with farmers and other local citizens in a railroad blockade that was the largest act of civil disobedience in the history of Ontario province. When the government responding by dropping the plan, it offered some compensation to the mine owners. But one U.S. investor is still using NAFTA to sue for lost potential profits.
(...) Their demand to include sweeping investor protections in the Free Trade Area of the Americas was one factor in the collapse of those negotiations, after 11 years of talks involving 34 countries.
(...) However, over the past 14 years U.S. trade officials have managed to insert excessive investor protections in trade agreements with 14 countries and in pending deals with four additional nations (as of May 1, 2007). The only exception is a 2004 U.S.-Australian deal. That country's negotiators refused to accept investor-state dispute settlement. Worldwide, these rules have proliferated through more than 2,500 bilateral investment treaties.
(...) On April 29, 2007, the leaders of Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua announced plans to withdraw from the World Bank's arbitration court. Their joint declaration stated that "(We) emphatically reject the legal, media and diplomatic pressure of some multinationals that … resist the sovereign rulings of countries, making threats and initiating suits in international arbitration." This surprise announcement will not be enough, legally, to release the three Latin American countries from the interlocking web of rules and institutions designed to shield foreign investors. Bilateral investment treaties signed by Bolivia and Venezuela would still be in force, and getting out of them could take years. Nicaragua would still be bound by the investment rules of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. And ICSID is the dominant but not the only enforcement option. Foreign investors could instead demand that their cases be heard under similar United Nations arbitration rules.
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