Sanders to Oppose Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)
SANDERS TO OPPOSE CENTRAL AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT (CAFTA)
1/14/2005
Congressman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced today that he will be strongly opposing the Central American Free Trade Agreement in the United States Congress. While the Bush Administration completed negotiations on CAFTA last summer, Congress must still approve it before the trade deal can take effect.
A vote on CAFTA could occur in Congress as early as March.
Sanders said, "Unfettered free trade has been an absolute disaster. Our trade agreements with China, Mexico, and other third-world countries have led to the loss of millions of decent-paying U.S. jobs and a record-breaking trade deficit that is projected to top $600 billion. Why on earth would we want to continue on this destructive path by enacting another job-cutting trade agreement like CAFTA?"
CAFTA expands upon the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada to include 5 Central American countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua) and the Dominican Republic. Sweatshops, child labor, horrendous working conditions, extremely low pay and the abuse of workers have been well-documented in these countries for years by Human Rights Watch, the National Labor Committee and other Non-Governmental Organizations. CAFTA would completely eliminate U.S. tariffs on all non-textile and non-agricultural products made in Central American countries and the Dominican Republic immediately, and phase in the duty-free treatment of other Central American goods entering the U.S. within 5-20 years. As such, CAFTA would provide enormous incentives for U.S. corporations to close more factories in the U.S., and open factories in Central America where cheap labor is abundant.
Sanders concluded, "The economic challenge of the 21st Century is to stop U.S. corporations from outsourcing our jobs abroad to cheap foreign labor markets, and start getting them to invest in the United States of America. If we don't, the middle class will continue to shrink, as we lose more and more good-paying jobs. Unfortunately, CAFTA will continue to make jobs our number one export and, as such, must be defeated in Congress."
Sanders will be re-introducing legislation to repeal Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China and the Defending American Jobs Act to prohibit companies that lay-off a greater percentage of American workers than overseas workers from receiving corporate welfare from the federal government.
http://bernie.house.gov/documents/releases/20050114160116.asp