Onderstaand citaat is deel van een compleet artikel.
'NAFTA + WTO = FTAA

What is "FTAA"?
The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is the formal name given to an expansion of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) that would include nearly all of the countries in the western hemisphere. This massive NAFTA expansion is currently being negotiated in secret by trade ministers from a total of 34 nations in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean. The goal of the FTAA is to impose the failed NAFTA model of increased privatization and deregulation hemisphere-wide. Imposition of these rules would empower corporations to constrain governments from setting standards for public health and safety, to safeguard their workers, and to ensure corporations do not pollute the communities in which they operate. Effectively, these rules would handcuff governments' public interest policymaking and enhance corporate control at the expense of citizens throughout the Americas. FTAA would deepen the negative effects of NAFTA we've seen in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. over the past seven years and expand NAFTA's damage to the other 31 countries involved. The FTAA would intensify NAFTA's "race to the bottom": under FTAA, exploited workers in Mexico could be leveraged against even more desperate workers in Haiti, Guatemala or Brazil by companies seeking tariff-free access back into U.S. markets. A quick look at NAFTA's legacy reveals disastrous consequences:
 

• An estimated 395,000 U.S. jobs have been lost since NAFTA as companies relocated to Mexico to take advantage of the weaker labor standards. These workers usually find jobs with less security and wages that are about 77% of what they originally had.
• The U.S. trade surplus with Mexico has become a deficit for the first time.
• Despite promises of increased economic development throughout Mexico, only the border region has seen intensified industrial activity. Yet even this small "gain" has not brought prosperity. Over one million more Mexicans work for less than the minimum wage of $3.40 per day today than before NAFTA, and during the NAFTA period, eight million Mexicans have fallen from the middle class into poverty.
• In addition, the increase of border industry has created worsening environmental and public health threats in the area. Every day, 44 tons of hazardous waste are disposed of improperly. In this time, birth defects have increased dramatically. In the first year of NAFTA in one Texas border county, 15 babies were born without brains -- an unprecedented 36% increase from the year before!
• Along the border, the occurrence of some diseases, including hepatitis, is two or three times the national average, due to lack of sewage treatment and safe drinking water.

Although it's hard to imagine that anyone would push for more of a failed model like this, what little we do know about FTAA is that is likely to look quite a bit like NAFTA. In fact, some FTAA texts are reported to be literally based on NAFTA, with additional countries added in. We know what results to expect!' Lees meer over Nafta. Zie ook de nummer tien uit de toptien van 1995 van Project Censored.

De NRC van afgelopen vrijdag: 'Zo wacht Québec nerveus op mogelijk het zwaarste geweld sinds 1759, toen de Britten er de Fransen versloegen. Burgemeester Jean-Paul L'Allier, die de stad in 1998, dus ruim vóór Seattle, beschikbaar stelde voor de top, heeft inmiddels spijt. ,,De volgende keer dat de leiders een gesloten ontmoeting willen houden, moeten ze dat maar in de woestijn doen'', vindt hij.' De WTO (Wereldhandelsorganisatie) die van de betogers zo op haar donder heeft gehad in Praag, houdt haar volgende bijeenkomst in het zanderige Quatar. ('The upcoming meeting of the World Trade Organization should not be held in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, Human Rights Watch said today').

Zie ook meer informatie met betrekking tot dit onderwerp in een stukje van Project Censored getiteld 'Secret International Trade Agreement Undermines The Sovereignty of Nations'. 'This agreement has the potential to place profits ahead of human rights and social justice, and that is why our judges named this story the No.1 censored or under reported story of 1998. MAI would thrust the world economy much closer to a system where international corporate capital would hold free reign over the democratic values and socioeconomic needs of people.'

Lees over de concrete gevolgen van Nafta voor de mensen die Barbie-poppen maakten in de Mattel-fabrieken.

Top Ten Reasons to Oppose the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
FTAA: feiten en fictie.
Boek over de WTO, voorwoord van voormalig presidentskandidaat Ralph Nader: 'Whose Trade Organization? Corporate Globalization and the Erosion of Democracy'.

DaanSpeak
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