NOT THIS TRADE AGREEMENT: A Statement Concerning the Upcoming Meeting of Western Hemisphere Heads of State to Reach Agreement on a Free Trade Agreement for the Americas: FTAA

from the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism April 5, 2001

INTRODUCTION On April 20-22, 2001 heads of state of 34 countries (the only exclusion being Cuba) in the Western Hemisphere will assemble in Quebec City, Canada to further dialogue toward the establishment of a so-called Free Trade Agreement for the Americas (FTAA). Women and men from labor, religious, environmental, indigenous and other mass organizations are mobilizing against the FTAA in the spirit of the mobilizations in Seattle, Washington D.C.,Davos, Switzerland and the formation of the World Social Forum. All of these activities represent challenges to the neoliberal economic orthodoxy promoted by the G-7 countries, international financial institutions, and multinational corporations. The FTAA represents the institutionalization of the neoliberal agenda all across the Western Hemisphere; a NAFTA for the entire region.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT This meeting of Hemisphere leaders is just the latest development in a two decade history of the purposeful changes in the global economy promoted by manufacturing and finance capital. In 1982, President Lopez Portillo of Mexico declared his country bankrupt and in exchange for debt rescheduling through the International Monetary Fund committed his country to a radical break with the past: downsizing government programs, deregulating the Mexican economy, and privatizing publicly owned corporations. Mexico then began to open its borders to foreign capital.

One by one countries around the hemisphere embraced this neoliberal policy agenda under sanction from the IMF and private banks. While some Latin America and Caribbean economies grew, such growth was always at the expense of the vast majorities of the people living in these countries. Throughout the region unemployment rose dramatically (some 40 percent of the working age population of Latin America was forced into the informal sector, including drugs, prostitution, street vendoring), income and wages declined by 15 percent, and access to health care and education declined.The 1980s became known as the "lost decade."

To further the goals of capitalism the United States government, and ruling elites in Canada and Mexico began to promote so-called "free trade." The policy was not so much about free trade as it was about moving manufacturing facilities from the United States and Canada to where labor was much cheaper than at home ( During the last 20 years Mexican manufacturing wages have averaged no more than 10 percent of U.S. wages. About 40 percent of U.S./Mexican trade has become intra-firm). Also "free trade" agreements opened the doors for financial speculators from the United States to enter the Mexican financial system.

To promote "free trade" a U.S./Canadian agreement was signed in 1989, the prelude to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which was approved by Congress (after an intense political opposition led by labor and environmentalists) in 1993 and became operational between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico in January, 1994. Soon after, Western Hemisphere leaders met in Miami, Florida and committed themselves to a hemisphere wide trade agreement by 2005. One year later, the World Trade Organization (WTO), a global arrangement similar in kind to NAFTA, started functioning.

Our look at this history would not be complete without mention of the inspirational role of the Zapatista movement in Mexico. On January 1, 1994, the day NAFTA went into effect, the Zapatistas launched what has become a global challenge to neoliberalism. Their strong action and clear analysis has inspired activism worldwide and laid the foundation for many of the protests in recent years.

IMPACTS The experience of the shift to the neoliberal agenda in the Western Hemisphere since the 1980s has been devastating to working people in every country:

-throughout the region gaps between rich and poor nations and rich and poor peoples have grown. -real wages in the wealthiest countries (the U.S. and Canada) continued their downward slide since the 1970s and even with modest job and wage growth in the U.S. since 1997, most workers earn less now than they did in the 1970s. -real wages in Mexico declined by 65 percent from 1982-1992 and wages in the manufacturing sector have declined 9.5 percent (1994-1999) since NAFTA went into effect (average wages declined from $2.10 to $1.90 an hour). -U.S. estimated job losses from NAFTA is somewhere between 240,000 and 440,000 -Mexicans living in poverty has risen from 47 percent in 1994 to 51 percent in 1997. -Mexico has experienced increased emissions of toxic chemicals since the onset of NAFTA -union membership in the U.S. continues to decline and Mexican state violence has been used on insurgent Mexican workers -finally, migration from rural areas to shantytowns in big cities to the United States has risen.

All of these negative impacts have occurred during a time when United States foreign investment in Mexico has more than doubled, maquiladora (border and other deregulated manufacturing zones) employment has more than tripled, Mexican exports to the U.S. have doubled, and corporate profits have achieved double digit levels (10.4 percent before tax profits in 1997).

CCDS POSITION ON FTAA We endorse the mobilizations in Quebec City. We encourage all who can join the protest in that city to do so. We oppose effiorts by the Canadian authorities to launch a campaign of police repression against protesters. We support the calls for the FTAA to be more open to public scrutiny and democratic participation. We endorse demands for strong and enforceable labor rights in the agreement. We endorse calls for rigorous environmental standards.

However, we believe these reforms are not enough. We believe that a new trade agreement is needed; one that puts people above profits and includes the following:

-guarantees of worker rights at the work place -guarantees that all workers in FTAA countries receive a living wage -a code of conduct governing the behavior of multinational corporations in host countries -full regulations of financial investments in host countries including a punitive tax on investors who sell their assets in host countries within one year of investments -an environmental code of conduct -full rights of participation in an agreement by all countries in the Western Hemisphere, including Cuba -an agreement that in principle strives to harmonize upward the economic, social, and environmental wellbeing of all peoples living in the Western Hemisphere.

For more information about FTAA and the protest mobilizations in Quebec City and elsewhere in North America see: International Day of Action-Stop the FTAA at Wysiwyg://82/http://www.a20.org

The AFL-CIO at www.AFLCIO.org

Public Citizen at http://www.tradewatch.org