Say NO to CAFTA - Tell your Senators & Congress to vote NO!

[Amy6627]

The Bush Administration is stepping up pressure to secure the votes it will need to pass the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)—a proposed pact between the United States and five Central American countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica) plus the Dominican Republic. This is the most important battle over U.S. trade policy to be considered by Congress in more than 10 years. The Bush Administration signed CAFTA on May 28, 2004, and congressional approval is now the final hurdle before its passage into law.

CAFTA is an attempt to expand the failed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) model. NAFTA has been a disaster for small farmers and working people in Canada, the United States, and Mexico, with hundreds of thousands of jobs lost, family farms foreclosed, and public interest laws overturned or challenged in secret NAFTA courts. Despite this dismal record, the Bush administration is seeking to expand NAFTA to Central America and the rest of the Western Hemisphere.

If CAFTA passes, we can expect more job loss, more destruction of rural communities, more threats to our environment, and more attacks by corporations on our democracy. CAFTA would further erode labor and environmental standards in Central America, cause massive dislocation of Central American farmers, prevent people with HIV/AIDS from getting access to life-saving medicines, lead to more privatization of essential services in Central America, and lead us further away from our path toward a just global economy.

From the beginning of CAFTA negotiations, the Bush administration has been clear that completion of CAFTA is crucial to move the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations forward faster, by adding extra pressure to countries like Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina to either accede to U.S. demands, or be left out. FTAA would be NAFTA-on-steroids for the entire Western Hemisphere.


For more information and analysis, please see:
www.citizenstrade.org
www.stopcafta.org
www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/cafta.