Eldondre....Your logic here escapes me.....Ohio..a U.S. State is losing jobs to MEXICO another country! Unless you consider Mexico a U.S. state which some nativist types do..you need remediation in basic geography. Your understanding of NAFTA and it's implications is flawed. I'm not talking about free trade in relation to interstate commerce. We are talking about NAFTA..The North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994 which established a free trade zone between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. It was expanded to include Chile under Clinton.

In 2001 Bush formalized the proposal of expanding NAFTA to a Free Trade Area of the Americas, encompassing 34 countries and 800 million people by 05. Obviously, this hasn't happened completely although CAFTA, an extension of NAFTA, has brought more latin american countries in the fold under Bush. Additionally, the U.S. is negotiating FTA's with Colombia as we have noted and I believe still ironing things out with Peru and Panama although they are pretty much in the FTA fold. Ecuador and Bolivia are no longer in the picture b/c their governments are leaning towards the Mercosur route (Full members- Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and eventually Venezuela). In fact, Chile, Colombia and Peru are associate members along with Bolivia and Ecuador in this regional trade agreement (RTA)...Mexico is just an "observer" member...

A free trade zone means goods can cross these INTERNATIONAL borders in either direction supposedly without tariffs or taxes of any kind. However, I'm not sure how you can characterize this trade pact as free when the U.S. government is providing U.S. taxpayer subsidies to U.S. Agribusiness? Is not a government subsidy essentially a protective tariff? Does this not disadvantage the trade partner who is trying to play by WTO rules and not imposing protective trade tariffs of their own in the form of subsidies?

Moreover, if the loss of jobs in Ohio to Mexico is not related to NAFTA and free trade as you suggest, why don't we ship those Ohio jobs mentioned in the article to Sweden? Oh yeah, they are not a signatory of NAFTA, not a North American country, nor are they willing to subject their population to free market serf wages. They actually believe in providing their people with a living wage, equitable labor standards, pension, healthcare etc etc. Around 80% of the Swedish labor force is unionized and instead of legislating minimum wage they do it by collective bargaining. This has not had any negative effect on them as their inflation rate is low 1.4% (2006 est.) and their GDP growth is 4.2% per year as opposed to our negative growth. Indeed, after their economic crisis in the 90's (their own real estate bubble) they have become a unique economic model characterized by close cooperation between the government, labor unions and corporations. The government has run surpluses every year except a couple since 98. They have created a succesful model in which extensive social benefits can be maintained in a global economy. They haven't joined the Free trade race to the bottom and they are not even part of the common Euro currency yet their people are experiencing a high standard of living.


By taking a look at how free trade works, we can see why virtually every labor, ecological and anti-poverty organization in Latin America is strongly opposed to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas.

The critics see things this way: Let's say that the Newcastle mining industry in Britain can produce a ton of coal at the cost of $10, which it sells on the domestic market. The industry thrives. At the same time, coal mining in Pennsylvania is just as efficient, but with transportation and British import tariffs the cost to export coal to Britain would be $15 a ton. No deal. But the Pennsylvania mining interests, desperate for export markets, have powerful lobbyists in Congress, which in turn enacts the "Coal Law," providing a government subsidy of $5 a ton. Further, with a free-trade agreement between the U.S. and Britain abolishing the $2-a-ton tariff, there would be a net gain of $7 a ton for the Pennsylvania mining industry. Now its actual — if artificial — cost of production is $8 an exported ton, $2 cheaper than the $10-a-ton Newcastle coal. Voila! Coals to Newcastle. Goodbye Newcastle mining industry. Hello massive British unemployment and FOOD STAMPS.

The logic is simple. There are two ways to "protect" local industry: import tariffs and export subsidies.

Free trade eliminates tariffs, giving the economic advantage not only to those producers that are more efficient production-wise (largely because they are more capitalized) but also to those industries blessed with governments capable of delivering massive subsidies. In other words, to the already industrialized and wealthy nations.

Coal miners in Newcastle may not have to worry about my hypothetical example, but corn growers in Mexico have every reason to panic.

Grains are to Mexico as coal was to Newcastle. Since the initiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement among the U.S., Canada and Mexico in 1994, the earnings of Mexican growers of corn, wheat and rice, along with beans, have plummeted, while the cost to the Mexican consumer has risen by 257%.

Mexico, the land where corn was first domesticated centuries ago, is now importing "cheap" subsidized U.S. agribusiness corn. Coals to Newcastle indeed.

With a dramatic difference in industrialization (70 U.S. tractors, for example, for every Mexican tractor) and the powerful agricultural lobby in Washington maintaining enormous subsidies, it is no wonder that Mexican farmers cannot compete once protective tariffs are eliminated.

In theory, free trade should make everyone more competitive, replacing the inefficient with the efficient. The idea is that everyone should do what they are best at and purchase from their neighboring countries what those countries do best. Everyone gains.

In theory......

In reality, for historical and geopolitical reasons, what Third World countries are "best at" is having their natural resources extracted and exported to the industrialized nations (which in turn sell back manufactured products at a high cost) and having their populations exploited for cheap labor. This is what I'm talking about in regard to Mexico and it's oil..it's not free but it comes at a cost to their own people in lousy labor standards....(social cost in exchange for access to Mexican oil..)

Advocates of free trade — the already developed industrialized nations and those in the Third World countries who do their bidding — argue in the abstract, taking advantage of words with positive connotations such as "free" and "trade." In the real world, however, economics is not a matter of ideology but rather of production and markets and the intervention of government. Bilateral agreements between unequal partners are inherently biased in favor of the stronger — and the greater the disparity, the greater the bias.

This is exactly the situation that exists between the U.S. and Latin American republics...and yes the reverse situation exists between the U.S. and China...thank you! ...you just proved my point that "Free" trade is a myth and is harming american workers and compromising our sovereignty...

The World Trade Organization's treaties and the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas are characterized by undemocratic processes, such as secret and semisecret pre-agreements and unrealistic deadlines, and economic blackmail including threats to withhold the International Monetary Fund and World Bank funding upon which the weaker nations' governments have become dependent. This is why Mercosur has arisen..they are not going to play by U.S. trade rules any longer or subject themselves to bad loans...

As far as the FARC....the Colombian Government's illegal paramilitary forces are not exactly benign angels...

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB217/index.htm