Mar. 28, 2005 - 19:04 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Who ?

Column by Marcela Sanchez in today's Rocky Mountain News, in part:

Free trade no automatic road map to success

"The late Yale law professor Arthur Leff once illustrated the hazards of making choices in complex processes by imagining himself marooned on a desert island. While his island provided only coconuts and oysters to survive, across the bay he imagined "another island, lush and fertile." Leff wisely told himself, "I do not improve my position in life by swimming halfway across."

"Protesters in Guatemala clashed with police last week , as they demanded that the Guatemalan Congress refuse ratification of CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Two were killed and more than 100 injured. Meanwhile CAFTA passed as expected, and Guatemala became the third country to ratify the agreement after El Salvador and Honduras."

"Certainly, these trade agreements could always stand improvement. But having spent some time this past week on the sidelines during the latest round of trade negotiations between the United States and Andean countries held in Washington, I am convinced that no amount of access to negotiations will substitute for the efforts yet to be undertaken: ensuring that those segments of society most at risk from free trade will not be neglected."

"Officials both here and in Latin America promote free trade today as a component of a much greater developoment strategy that promises passage to a more lush and prosperous future. Trade alone, they acknowledge, is but a tool for an overall solution to eradicate persistent poverty. Their rhetoric at least suggests they understand that free trade only gets them halfway across the bay."

"These are not uncharted waters. We know the effects of free trade. Eleven years after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was ratified, small subsistence farmers in Mexico have yet to see sufficient technical, educational or infrastructural aid to adjust to the new free trade environnment.

"To their credit, U.S. trade negotiators learned from the NAFTA experience and thus held parallel conversations during CAFTA negotiations (and are doing it now with the Andean countries) to discuss the sorts of things countries in the region will need to make the transition less painful."

"The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative also highlights that since the launch of negotiations, the Inter-American Development Bank has approved more than $500 million in "CAFTA-related operations."The truth of the matter is, however, that no country has yet tapped into an IDB program dedicated exclusively to "meet the challenges of the trade adjustment process."

"Free trade agreements "are not an automatic road map to success." Politically it couldn't be more urgent for governments to do the hard work of preparing the countries for transition."

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In my opinion I can't see where NAFTA has helped one little bit, the inflow of folks from south of our border, if anything, has increased drastically. If NAFTA is such a good thing why should such things be evidenced ?

Even in the article by Marcela Sanchez there seems to me to be an amount of waffling, smoke and mirrors involved.

Improvements take time that is true, but eleven years and improvement seems to be nil in Mexico. At least none has been sent the way of poor folks, maybe the biggies and richies are profiting.

What is our country getting out of this ? What products, what manufactured goods, what agricultural goods ? At what savings ? And, just what provisions will be made (if any) for the poverty stricken folks in other lands when we can't even adequately take care of our own poor ?

Most used ploys of the 2000's, Smoke and Mirrors, the biggest act, The Dog And Pony Show. Everything is talked over, talked around but it seems little real good is done for the little guy.

So, who is trying to fool Who ? . . . . . . . . .

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