Trade pact would hurt Colombia, U.S.
By Iris Ann Ledden, SSND
November 19, 2008
It would be tragic if this lame duck Congress passes a free trade agreement with Colombia as President Bush wants before leaving office.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has left Mexico struggling on many levels. The final blow came this year when the U.S. and Mexican governments removed all cross-border tariffs on agriculture. Agriculture interests on both sides protested. Without tariffs, Mexican farmers cannot compete with their heavily subsidized American counterparts.
The trade agreement has also affected the maquiladoras (manufacturing jobs) where employees of U.S. companies can produce products more cheaply and then export them to the United States. The workers have no labor rights or health protections with workdays stretching to 12 hours or more.
The effects of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) have been similar in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rico and the Dominican Republic. The result: increased poverty due to low pay (sometimes less than a $1 a day), poor working conditions with no benefits or health insurance while the transnational corporations and the rich grow wealthier.
We can only expect the same from an agreement with Colombia.
Most Colombian farmers can not compete in the global market because they lack technology, infrastructure and access to markets. Many analysts predict that U.S. products would end up being dumped onto the Colombian market at below production costs. Food security is already a problem in Colombia where 5 million of the 44.6 million people go to bed hungry. U.S. farmers receive annual government subsidies of $24 billion. In Colombia, only large agro-industries of bananas, cotton and flowers are subsidized. The average Colombian farmer remains unsubsidized and must use his crops to feed his family and, hopefully, sell enough locally to eke out a living.
The free trade agreement also permits transnational corporations to further buy and control economic sectors such as the Colombian water systems, health care, education, postal service and transportation. Water and health care are already being privatized.
Colombia is one of the most dangerous places in the world for trade unionists. Since 1991 more than 2,200 Colombian unionists (and counting) have been assassinated. The Colombian Committee of Jurists says the government considers union activity to be "subversive" because it challenges corporate profits. Unfortunately, the United States has had a hand in this. Our government has over the past eight years poured billions of dollars into Colombia to aid the military. According to Witness for Peace, Colombia is the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid. The U.S. government has trained over 10,000 Colombian military troops at the School of the Americas now known as the Western Hemispheric School.
Witness for Peace and other human rights organizations have exposed American-based corporations that are tied to the violence in Colombia: Drummond Coal, Coca-Cola, Chiquita, Dole and Nestle. Human rights organizations say the companies have hired paramilitary soldiers to kill, threaten, torture and kidnap union leaders, workers and private citizens so they can prioritize their own profits over worker and landowner rights.
The free trade agreement will continue the neo-liberal economics begun in the 1980s that favored large transnational corporations which rapidly moved into Latin American. Before, the policy had been to encourage countries to produce more goods and services rather than buying them from outside. With NAFTA and CAFTA, everything changed and brought about inequality in trade between countries. In Colombia there is no work for many. The Afro Colombians and many of the indigenous have been displaced and their lands taken to give the government and transnational corporations access to resources.
These two groups live in extreme poverty and have repeatedly spoken out against the FTA. They would see no benefit and sink into greater poverty and desperation.
What would benefit them is fair trade whose main goal is to empower economically disadvantaged artisans. It is a strategy for poverty alleviation and sustainable development and provides safer and healthier working conditions.
Colombia will not be the only country hurt by the FTA. Many U.S. jobs will be outsourced to Colombia where production is cheaper.
I have visited El Salvador and Colombia. I have met these people who are suffering greatly from human rights abuses. They are gracious people who simply want to live a normal life, feed their families, be respected and not live in terror. They deserve our help.
You can help. Buy Fair Trade products. Tell your representatives in Congress to oppose a free trade act with Colombia.
Sister Iris Ann Ledden is ad hoc co-director of the Peace and Justice Commission of The Catholic Diocese of Lexington and a member of Witness for Peace.