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North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
What is it?
What's New?
Background
Chapter 11
Learn more
What
is NAFTA?
NAFTA is a treaty agreed to by the governments of the United
States, Canada and Mexico in 1993. Its purpose was to bring
down barriers to trade and investment between the member nations
and thus ensure the prosperity of all citizens of those nations.
In fact, most indicators show that NAFTA has had the opposite
effect--that it has been disastrous for the workers of these
three countries. The new treaty, called the Free Trade Areas
of the Americas, which would extend the provisions of NAFTA
to all thirty-four countries of Latin America (except for Cuba),
contains many of the most destructive rules contained in NAFTA.
What's
New?
Analysis of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
on its 10th Birthday
"NAFTA
Tribunals Stir U.S. Worries" Front page article from
the New York Times explains how national sovereignty and courts
can be compromised by NAFTA tribunals. (4/18/04) Go...
Women's
Edge Coalition's New Study Demonstrates that NAFTA has Hurt
Poor Women in Mexico, FTAA will make it Worse (4/18/04)
Go...
"Second
Thoughts on Free Trade" (1/6/04) Go...
"Second Thoughts..."
provides background to two other New York Times articles specific
to NAFTA.
"Free
Trade Accord at 10: Growing Pains Are Clear"
(12/27/03;
You now would have purchase the article, but you can contact
us if you'd like the article by email.) Go...
"The
Broken Promise of Nafta" (1/6/04)
Go...
Background
In May
2003, the PC(USA) passed an G.A. Action on trade agreements
and asks Presbyterians to educate themselves on NAFTA, FTAA
and other agreements. Please read the General
Assembly Action and Rationale
Go...
January
1, 2003 was the ninth anniversary of the implementation
of the North American Free Trade Agreement: NAFTA now has an
extensive real life record. NAFTA's proponents promised the
pact would create new benefits and gains in each of these areas.
The promised benefits of 200,000 new U.S. jobs from NAFTA
per year, higher wages in Mexico and a growing U.S. trade surplus
with Mexico, environmental clean-up and improved health along
the border have failed to materialize. However, after eight
years, NAFTA fails to pass the most conservative test of all:
a simple do-no-harm test. Under NAFTA, conditions not only have
not improved, they have deteriorated in many areas.
Learn
more about NAFTA from Public Citizens' Global Trade Watch
The North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) includes an array
of new corporate investment rights and protections that are
unprecedented in scope and power. NAFTA allows corporations
to sue the national government of a NAFTA country in secret
arbitration tribunals if they feel that a regulation or government
decision affects their investment in conflict with these new
NAFTA rights. If a corporation wins, the taxpayers of the "losing"
NAFTA nation must foot the bill. This extraordinary attack on
governments' ability to regulate in the public interest is a
key element of the proposed NAFTA expansion, called the Free
Trade Areas of the Americas (FTAA). Go...
Chapter
11
NAFTA's
investment chapter (Chapter 11) contains a variety of new
rights and protections for investors and investments in NAFTA
countries. If a company believes that a NAFTA government has
violated these new investor rights and protections, it can initiate
a binding dispute resolution process for monetary damages before
a trade tribunal, offering none of the basic due process or
openness guarantees afforded in national courts. These so-called
"investor-to-state" cases are litigated in the special
international arbitration bodies of the World Bank and the United
Nations, which are closed to public participation, observation
and input. To learn more about Chapter 11 Go...
EDUCATIONAL
RESOURCES
1)
Action
03-33. On Opposing the Free Trade Areas of the Americas
in Its Current Form
From the Presbytery of San Francisco.
Concurrence to Overture 03-33 from the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy.
The Presbytery
of San Francisco overtures the 215th General Assembly (2003)
of the PC (USA) to take the following actions:
1. Support efforts to strive toward international cooperation
based on fair trade, respect for diversity, and common concerns
for a peaceful, just, and sustainable world.
2. Oppose multinational actions and trade agreements that
elevate rights of corporations over the right of governments
and indigenous peoples to pass and enforce laws that preserve
the public good and protect their citizens, economies, and
environments.
3. Oppose the Free Trade. Area of the Americas (FTAA) in its
current form.
4. Direct the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, as
well as representatives of PC (USA) programs dealing with
economic justice, hunger, and advocacy, to promptly communicate
the General Assembly position to the U.S. trade representative,
U.S. senators and representatives, congressional committees
with trade jurisdiction, and state legislators.
a. Call on the U. S. trade representative to withdraw from
any further negotiations on the proposed FT AA until there
has been full public disclosure of its proposed text, open
public debate, and a place at the negotiating table for representatives
of the diverse sectors of civil society who would be affected
by this agreement.
b. Petition the federal government to refuse to sign any new
trade and investment agreements, such as the proposed FTAA,
that include investor-state provisions, where corporations
can directly sue governments for lost profits ("regulatory
takings").
c. Demand that all trade agreements incorporate workers rights,
human rights, food safety, and environmental standards, and
that they allow governments and sovereign indigenous peoples
to regulate corporations to protect the common good.
d. Oppose any extension of "Fast Track" Presidential
Trade Negotiating Authority, which limits the role of Congress
in negotiating or amending the terms of the FT AA and other
proposed trade agreements.
5. Call on presbyteries, churches, and church members to
do the following:
a. Become educated about the FTAA, NAFTA, MERCOSUR
(Southern Cone Common Market), and
other trade agreements, and the role of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, World Trade Organization
(WTO), and other multinational organizations in creating and
enforcing globalization policies that are unsustainable and
unjust, in part, by drawing on the resources of the Presbyterian
Hunger Program, Joining Hands Against Hunger.
b. Advocate with state legislators and U.S. senators and representatives,
urging them to oppose extending Fast Track and oppose the
FTAA.
c. Join in coalitions with community groups, including other
Christian denominations, who are organizing opposition to
the FTAA and trade agreements with similar provisions, and
to make meeting space available to such groups.
READ
THE ACTION RATIONALE Go...
2)
Enough for Everyone's Coffee
Project and Sweat-Free
T
3)
PHP's Food and Faith: Global
Food Systems
4)
Globalization and Trade Study Papers
from PC(USA)'s Advisory Committee on Social
Witness Policy (ACSWP)
The
ACSWP has developed a series of four study papers on globalization
and trade issues impacting the church and the world as the
new millennium dawns. They serve as a basis for the development
of a Resolution anticipated for the 216th General Assembly
(2004). They are the following:
5)
Global Discipleship CD
This free CD-ROM (PC and Mac compatible) from the Presbyterian
Hunger Program is intended for use in your congregation's
high school and adult study classes to learn more about our
roles as Christians in a global economy.
Go to the PC(USA) Marketplace
and in the search field enter the words - global discipleship.
The
following resources may be useful for sparking ideas, but
may not be fully backed by GA policy:
6) FTAA for Beginner's Workshop from United for a Fair Economy
Go...
7)
Stop the FTAA: Democracy Before Trade
- from the Council of Canadians
Go...
8)
Making the Links: A People's Guide to the WTO and FTAA
by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke
This colorful, 43-page manual is a thorough, readable guide
to the issues and strategies for opposing unjust trade. (PDF
610 KB)
Go...
9)
ACTION TOOLS: Take Action Against Unfair Trade - from
Witness for Peace Go...
A Menu
of Actions Go...
BACKGROUND
DOCUMENT
MAKING
GLOBAL TRADE WORK for People
UN Development Programme
This report presents a far reaching reassessment of the current
multilateral trade regime and examines how it can be improved
in order to contribute genuinely to human development Go...
Your
reactions and ideas are encouraged.
Please email
or call (888) 728-7228 x5388.
Prepared
by Andrew Kang Bartlett
Associate for National Hunger Concerns
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