Posted on 04/10/2005 1:24:41 PM PDT by Crackingham
The politicians can dicker over whether free trade is good for America. On the shaded front porch of David's Catfish House, there is no debate.
"Free trade did a number on Atmore. We need more of those deals like a dog needs fleas," said Atmore native Alfred J. Johnson. "They can talk all they want about the positives. We know different down here."
With the Senate set to begin hearings Tuesday on a complex, 2,600-page trade agreement with Central America, old questions over how to protect U.S. laborers are threatening to derail the pact. In places like Atmore, the last big free trade pact, the North American Free Trade Agreement, has been blamed for everything from job losses and bankruptcies to potholes and drug crime. NAFTA, in short, is a dirty word.
"It would be hard for me to go to Atmore or any other small town in my district and hold up NAFTA as a model agreement," said U.S. Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Mobile. "They've seen a harsher side of free trade."
The new accord, the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement, commonly called CAFTA, would eliminate tariffs and other trade barriers between the United States and six Central American countries. CAFTA proponents, led by the Bush administration and an array of American industries, tout its potential economic benefits, saying they expect it to add thousands of jobs and boost demand for U.S. goods and services.
"It should be a no-brainer," said John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers and former Michigan governor. "It is difficult to understand why there is any opposition to CAFTA."
Indeed, few economists dispute the advantages that can come with free trade, particularly for consumers: cheaper prices, wider selection and a greater emphasis on innovation. Easing the flow of goods between countries also creates job prospects for thousands of workers -- a benefit primarily enjoyed by foreign laborers, and coming at the expense of blue-collar Americans. In the low-wage, low-skill corners of the Alabama economy, global trade has introduced a world of job-hungry competitors.
"We can demonstrate that the economic gains from free trade exceed the losses, but try explaining that to someone who's just been laid off," said Keivan Deravi, an economics professor at Auburn University Montgomery. "You can make the case that what's bad for him is good for the rest of the nation. But you can't expect him to be happy about it."
The hitch for CAFTA proponents is that free trade's gains tend to be slow-developing and spread widely across the economy, while its losses are often immediate and acute. The trade deal has met opposition from U.S. sugar, shrimp and textile industries, who foresee a flood of cheap imports from CAFTA countries. Some legislators oppose the deal because of what they say are weak labor rights and environmental standards in Central America.
"We acknowledge that there are concerns, but we can't let fear win out over opportunity," said Chris Padilla, an assistant United States trade representative who helped negotiate the CAFTA deal. "The opponents of free trade are very vocal and very organized. And they are very wrong."
There's an added twist in Alabama, where the proposal could widen the rift between the state's economically strong urban areas and its down-at-the-heels rural communities. CAFTA generally is met with open arms in big cities -- Mobile sees potential customers for its port, Birmingham for its banks and Montgomery for its newly opened Hyundai auto assembly plant. But there's deep skepticism in small-town Alabama, where many residents are still stinging from job losses that they tie directly to NAFTA.
Atmore, in southwest Escambia County along the border with Florida, lost its largest employer three years ago, when Vanity Fair Corp. shuttered an apparel plant and moved the work to Mexico. The plant employed more than 500 workers in a town with a population of about 8,000.
Atmore's story was far from unique: a 2003 study by the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute found that NAFTA caused a net loss of nearly 900,000 American jobs in the 10 years after it passed. Alabama lost more than 15,000 jobs, according the study. Those findings have been disputed by some, but there's no mistaking the bitterness that many people in rural Alabama feel toward free trade. Less than a year after the Vanity Fair plant's door swung shut, Atmore lost its largest retailer -- and its primary source of sales tax revenue -- when Kmart Corp. closed a local Big K department store.
"Places like Atmore got left in the dust," said John Watkins, a local city councilman. "NAFTA almost devastated us, took away nearly everything we had. What good are cheap products when you don't have an income? What have we gotten in exchange for what we gave up?"
CAFTA is a nightmare waiting to happen for America. We are already suffering from FREE TRADE and the politicians whose GLOBAL ASPIRATIONS are killing this country at our expense. Where does it stop?? WHEN AMERICA HAS BEEN CONVERTED TO A SECOND-RATE SLUM LIKE MEXICO, AND THE REST OF THE AMERICAS???
WHY ARE WE LETTING THIS HAPPEN ???
"Why are we letting this happen???"
Because the alternative is totalitarianism. How do you intend to stop freedom???
Because the alternative is totalitarianism. How do you intend to stop freedom???
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Apparently you do not see what FREE TRADE is being used for by our politicians...very apparent.
Because the alternative is totalitarianism.
That's just plain ridiculous. Free societies have been able to thrive quite well without turning over their economies to outside interests.
Is it me, or does a 2,600 page document give the impression, that this thing may not be all that its cracked up to be?
A true free trade agreement, like its protectionist counterpart, should be relatively thin and simple, and brief.
2,600 pages, is none of those.
A free society is forcebly the one in which an individual can use his money in whatever he wants.
I can understand that, but at 2,600 pages, this "thing" is not a free trade agreement, its some kind of entity that deals with trade, in some places, and protectionism in others, but a "free trade agreement" it is not, not by the definitions used by either free traders or protectionists.
I will be the first to admit, I have not read the agreement, but I would like to see any kind of future agreement, to be limited in size, simple in design, easy to understand for parties affected (either helped or hindered), and brief.
The kind of agreement, that does not require one to hire a lawyer to evaluate so it can be grasped, and where the reader or affected parties can draw their own conclusions to see if the agreement if beneficial or harmful to them.
I can understand that, but at 2,600 pages, this "thing" is not a free trade agreement, its some kind of entity that deals with trade, in some places, and protectionism in others, but a "free trade agreement" it is not, not by the definitions used by either free traders or protectionists.
I will be the first to admit, I have not read the agreement, but I would like to see any kind of future agreement, to be limited in size, simple in design, easy to understand for parties affected (either helped or hindered), and brief.
The kind of agreement, that does not require one to hire a lawyer to evaluate so it can be grasped, and where the reader or affected parties can draw their own conclusions to see if the agreement if beneficial or harmful to them.
Explain to us all what is "free" about free trade.
And paying taxes on it is "totalitarian"? Bizarre ideology that one encounters in these discussions.
Would you please elucidate. Who are those "outside interests" and what would you do to stop the turn over?
I don't see any conspiracy here. The "politicians" are
mere parasites on the process, as usual, since they produce only confusion and don't add to wealth.
FYI, the US before the Wilson admin, before the New Deal, before the Warren Court, before the Great Society when it was ran in a more or less Libertarian manner, the US had trade tariffs.
So who then are the initiators? The people?
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