Portman on a free trade roll
U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, who until last year represented Greater Cincinnati in Congress, scored another victory for the Bush administration today with the signing of the Bahrain Free Trade Agreement.
Bahrain is an island nation off the coast of Saudi Arabia. It’s the second free trade deal that Portman has gotten through Congress since he became the president’s chief trade negotiator last year. His first trade victory was getting the much-criticized Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) passed.
Read what President Bush had to say about the Bahrain deal.
Read what Portman had to say about Bush signing the deal.
4 Comments:
at 6:16 PM, January 11, 2006 
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at 9:34 AM, January 12, 2006 
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at 2:56 PM, January 12, 2006 
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at 3:47 PM, January 12, 2006 
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Post a Comment*CAFTA gives Latin Americans the Shaft. That's why there's a growing movement away from the neoCons neoliberalism. These policies are only good for big investors, at the expense of the people. They want to privatize and control everything.
South America is marching to the beat of a different drum and Central America will soon follow.
Anybody who has taken just one economics class knows that in the long run free trade benefits everyone. Its all about competitive advantage. One needs to only look at the great depression to see what happens once the leading economies of the world impose tariffs. But perhaps you'd like another great depression so we can usher in a new round of big government. Europe is learning the values of free trade, Clinton knew, and the Republicans (real ones) have known for a long time.
Anyone who travels south of the border can see the negative effects these agreements have had. They only benefit the foriegn investors.
The policies of the IMF, WTO and World Bank are good for transnational companies. They lower living standards for real people though. Thats why there is a movement away from these institutions.
NAFTA sent american jobs overseas, it certainly didn't benefit everyone. The same thing is happening in Mexico.
Fair trade benefits everyone!
And the only fair trade is free trade. Is there any statistical evidence to back your claim or only one's observations from traveling? For that matter, have you been traveling South routinely during the past century so you can verify that the standard of living has been getting worse and worse there?
Where is the movement away from the WTO, IMF, and world bank by legitimate scholars or leaders?
Since NAFTA there has been no "giant sucking sound" of jobs and investment heading south. In the past decade, the U.S. economy has added a net 18 million new jobs. America's unemployment rate is actually lower today than it was in the year before NAFTA went into effect. Since NAFTA, about 400,000 Americans have qualified for trade adjustment assistance under a special program for workers displaced by imports from Mexico, but that is a small number when spread over a decade and when compared to the millions of jobs being eliminated and created every quarter in the U.S. economy.
I urge you to actually do some reading:
I also urge you to actually do some reading on the benefits to all workers from free trade
http://www.freetrade.org/pubs/briefs/tbp-010.pdf
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