What is CAFTA?
The Central America Free Trade Agreement is a trade and investment agreement between the United States and five Central American countries namely Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Negotiations began in Costa Rica on January 27th and continued on a monthly basis until the end of 2003.
CAFTA Coalition
The CAFTA Coalition is comprised of civil society organizations in the United States working to advance human rights and democracy in Central America and the United States. The Coalition supports non-discriminatory trade and sustainable development, including, however not limited to, simplicity in trade negotiations, uniformity of enforcement for labor and environmental provisions, and the protection of essential public services such as social security and access to water. It consequently discards any trade agreement that follows the NAFTA model, which has caused a “race to the bottom” in labor and environmental standards, attacked institutions of democratic governance and national sovereignty, and compromised food security in all three countries. This model should not be extended to Central America.
CAFTA is part of U.S. capital's plan to produce by 2005 a single, gigantic free-trade zone extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. The plan is to merge Uncle Sam's political and economic supremacy in the hemisphere.
Analyst Toni Solo, an activist based in Central America, describes free-trade agreements as "mainly political deals using economic crow bars and hammers to break countries open for powerful U.S. investment and political interests at the same time as actually talking about trade." One could call them wars of invasion by other means.
The fascination of Central America for U.S.-based multinationals are not just rich cheap labor, abundant natural resources and valuable, publicly owned industries waiting to be privatized — while all of these will be utilized completely under the terms negotiated..............
