CAFTA, WALMART

A few excerpts from the September 9, 2005 edition of Jim Jontz's Trade Bits:

GIVING THANKS: The so-called "CAFTA 15," House Democrats whose votes, combined with those of most of the Republican majority, narrowly passed the CAFTA, "will reap rewards from business interests tonight at a fundraiser that is stoking the ire of some labor lobbyists," The Hill reports (9/7). Co-sponsored by National Association of Manufacturers President John Engler, the Electronic Industries Alliance, and the Business Roundtable, the fundraiser is being billed as a "thank you" to the 15 Democrats for their "politically difficult CAFTA support in the face of pressure from their leadership and outside forces," the article says. "This is just one of many events we will have in an ongoing battle to really raise consciousness and breadth of support for trade liberalization on Capitol Hill," an executive involved in the fundraiser said. "It’s pretty telling, I think, that the business community would be so interested in congratulating these Democrats because CAFTA is definitely a trade deal that’s in the interest of corporations and not in the interests of workers,” responded Karen Ackerman of the AFL-CIO. Unions wrote to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) before the CAFTA vote, warning of labor’s united opposition to the deal and urging swift retaliation against any Democrat who supported the trade agreement, "a crucial legislative priority for House GOP leadership."
***

LOBSTER TRAP: Obscure provisions in CAFTA have been used by the U.S. Trade Representative to ignore the wish of New Hampshire to be released from the deal's procurement rules, writes Arnie Alpert of the American Friends Service Committee in the Concord Monitor (9/5). Alpert says that the USTR took no action when New Hampshire's Governor wrote last May "instructing him to take New Hampshire out of CAFTA," claiming the U.S. would have to renegotiate the whole agreement. "In other words, CAFTA's provisions are like a lobster trap; once you get inside, it is impossible to get out again," Alpert writes. He says that if New Hampshire elected officials were to pass a law limiting the foreign outsourcing of public sector jobs, or prohibiting the purchase of uniforms made in sweatshops, those laws could be challenged under CAFTA. "The point is whether it is our elected officials or the members of international trade tribunals who should be able to decide" what procurement rules it should use," Alpert says. "It is ironic that one of the contentions made by the Bush administration to win CAFTA's passage was that the agreement would promote democracy. If future agreements are going to impose binding rules on state and local government, our own democratically elected leaders will have to raise their voices higher."
***

LOWER PRICES?: Wal-Mart is facing a "pitched battle" from opponents to its plans for new stores in "two heavily indigenous areas" in Mexico, Reuters reports (9/1). "This time we will definitely keep Wal-Mart from continuing its attack on Mexico's culture and its people," said Lorenzo Trujillo, head of the Civic Front for the Defense of Teotihuacan Valley. "We will occupy public offices and will do everything necessary to impede Wal-Mart's cultural plunder." Trujillo is facing legal action for the protests his organization held against the construction of a Wal-Mart store less than two kilometers from the Teotihuacan pyramids, Reuters says. The two proposed stores drawing protests would be located in the "picturesque colonial town" of Pátzcuaro, and in Juchitán in the state of Oaxaca. "We are not going to let Wal-Mart barge in with its neoliberal trade practices to sites of historical and cultural importance in Mexico," said Trujillo. "Someday in the not-too-distant future" the Wal-Mart supermarket near the Teotihuacan pyramids will be shut down and demolished, Trujillo also told Reuters. "Time will prove us right," he says.

It should however be noted that, if memory serves, a majority of the community in the Teotihuacan Valley support the opening of the Wal-Mart (as of about a year ago, anyway) because of the anticipated low prices. Very possibly this reflects an expensive PR campaign on the part of Wal-Mart.