ISDS Case Map
CAFTA
US - Central America Free Trade Agreement
The White House's failure to push forward its latest "free trade" deal is a victory for working people throughout the Americas.
Global Exchange, an international human rights organization, calls on citizens across the country to make their voices heard with their elected officials in opposition to CAFTA.
A US trade official acknowledged that the lack of Democratic support [for the congressional vote on CAFTA] “means we are going to have to make some trade-offs with elements of the Republican party that do not normally support trade agreements. That will probably involve making some uncomfortable deals.”
Rob Portman, the new US trade representative, discusses the US trade deficit with China and the controversial Central America Free Trade Agreement.
US farmers are already sitting on 700,000 tons of surplus sugar nationally, stockpiled as the result of deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and pacts with the World Trade Organization. Farmers must store the surplus at their own expense and fear those tons could multiply under a CAFTA deal.
Missing from the fight against CAFTA is an elite subset of the environmental movement: the international biodiversity conservation organizations. Not one of the four major groups in this field -- Conservation International, the World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and the Wildlife Conservation Society -- has demonstrated the courage to oppose CAFTA, despite ample opportunity over the past year.
In the Dominican enclave of Upper Manhattan, where street life thrives on mom-and-pop stores and the sound of bachata, trade debates are scrutinized through the lens of daily survival in the city and on the island.
As North American citizens, we have an obligation to stand with the people of Central America in their struggle for just and sustainable development. CAFTA's backers are pushing for a vote in Congress this month. We must send a strong message to our elected officials that CAFTA, and the faulty economic model it represents, is unacceptable.
US Trade Representative Rob Portman, now in his second week on the job, faces numerous challenges as he seeks to build support at home and abroad for an ambitious US trade agenda, observers say.
The current centerpiece of President Bush's trade agenda, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, is facing unusually united Democratic opposition as well as serious problems in overcoming well-entrenched special interest groups like sugar producers and much of the textile industry.
