Keystone to Convergence

Articles

By William Norman Grigg, The New American, published on www.StopCAFTA.com, April 18, 2005

A keystone is the crucial piece holding together two sections of an elaborate structure. If it is removed, the structure will collapse. If it's not put in place, the structure cannot be built. CAFTA plays that precise role in the planned hemispheric merger through the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

Through NAFTA, the United States, Mexico, and Canada are being rapidly merged into a single economic and political bloc. On March 14, shortly before President Bush met with Mexican leader Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin at a trinational summit in Texas, the Council on Foreign Relations released a report calling for the creation of a "North American Economic and Security Community" by 2010. The key points of that report were reiterated in a March 28 New York Times op-ed by Rafael Fernandez de Castro and Rossana Fuentes Berain, editor and managing editor of Foreign Affairs en Español (a Spanish-language publication of the Council on Foreign Relations).

Invoking Jean Monnet, founder of the European Union, the Mexican authors declared: "We must move beyond just managing trade and into constructing a new relationship … [intended] to bring a North American community closer to reality." Referring to the recent trinational summit, the authors predicted: "Maybe, just maybe, the men gathered at the Crawford ranch could someday be seen as the Jean Monnets of their age, the founding fathers of the North American Community."

But the vision behind the Crawford summit encompasses the entire hemisphere.

Speaking on March 23, President Bush explained: "In order to make sure the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas has a chance to succeed, it is important to show the sovereign nations in South America that trade has worked amongst the three of us." He also pointedly referred to CAFTA as "an important part" of this process of hemispheric merger, demanding that "Congress … make sure that they approve CAFTA this year."

But if the CAFTA keystone isn't put in place, the grand vision of an EU-style megastate will lose its forward momentum. This is why CAFTA must be defeated.

Why CAFTA Must Be Defeated

* Taken together, the six CAFTA nations have a minuscule consumer economy — but represent a huge pool of low-wage labor. Thus the only export encouraged by CAFTA would be U.S. manufacturing jobs.

* CAFTA is a critical steppingstone toward creation of a 34-nation Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), an embryonic regional government modeled after the socialistic European Union.

* Under CAFTA, barriers to agricultural imports from our "trading partners" would be removed immediately, while barriers to U.S. exports wouldn't be lifted for anywhere from 10-20 years — thereby crippling U.S. agricultural producers. And this precedent would almost certainly be followed in the FTAA.

* Promoters of CAFTA clearly perceive the pact to be a form of foreign aid to "emerging democracies" in Central America — tacitly recognizing that it wouldn't result in genuine free trade, but rather a huge transfer of wealth from the U.S. to the region.

What You Can Do

* For more information on CAFTA and what you can do to stop it, including congressional contact information, go to: www.StopCAFTA.com.

Read the complete article (scroll down to second article).

Also see CAFTA's big secret, by Lou Dobbs, CNN, June 30, 2005

CAFTA: Exporting American Jobs & Industry by William Norman Grigg, The New American, published on www.StopCAFTA.com, April 18, 2005