Revolutionary Worker #1221, November 30, 2003, posted at rwor.org
The following are excerpts from the article "FTAA: Sweatshopping the Hemisphere," which appeared in RW #1097. The article is available online at rwor.org.
The FTAA is one part of U.S. efforts to integrate the entire hemisphere into an integrated global market under the domination of the U.S. and serving U.S. interests.
Adoption of the FTAA would increase the impoverishment, exploitation and environmental destruction of the peoples and lands in the oppressed nations throughout the Western Hemisphere. It would further increase bloodsucking profit-making by big capitalist corporations. U.S. imperialist control and penetration of the economies of the poor countries of South and Central America would be strengthened.
The people of Latin America have already been devastated by austerity measures, privatization, and currency devaluation over the last decade. Already, 45% of the population live in deep poverty. Structural adjustment policies enforced by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank--two international financial institutions dominated by the U.S.--have led to more destruction of the rainforests and lands of indigenous peoples. U.S.-backed counter-insurgency wars in Colombia and against the people's war in Peru have brought death, displacement and torture. The FTAA will make this nightmare situation for the people even worse..
As A World To Win magazine points out: " `Free trade' is itself a hollow watchword today--this is the era of imperialism, where big monopolies bestride the globe and dominate every major sphere of economic life. The 500 top multinational corporations, most of them based in the U.S., control 70 percent of all cross-border trade, and 60 percent of trade in agricultural products is controlled by U.S. agribusiness firms. In practice, expanding trade strengthens the ability of those able to take advantage of worldwide production and marketing networks by stripping away the mechanisms different countries have set up to protect the smaller home-grown industries and agriculture. Bringing small enterprises in particular in the Third World into more direct unfettered rivalry with the Western-based giants is a guarantee that the larger firms will gobble up the smaller ones and extend their penetration and domination of the oppressed countries." (See AWTW #26, "Free Trade-Engine of Growth or Plunder?"--available online at awtw.org.)
Trade expansion under imperialism has actually increased the polarization between rich and poor countries and within countries. The standard of living in the richest countries in the world was three times that of the poorest countries in 1800, six times higher in 1900, and 20 times higher in 2000. And in the period of the largest expansion of trade, from 1980 to 1996, 59 countries experienced an actual decline in Gross Domestic Product per year..
The FTAA is based on NAFTA, as well as elements of WTO (World Trade Organization) treaties. The major areas the agreement will cover are agriculture, services, investment, dispute settlement, intellectual property rights, subsidies and anti-dumping, competition policy, government procurement, and market access.
Essentially the FTAA will increase the ability of capital and goods to move across borders without any kind of hindrance or tariffs. Capital will flow rapidly in and out of countries to wherever the quickest and highest profit can be found. Health, safety, labor and environmental protections will be undermined or eliminated. Corporations will be allowed to sue governments for money--on the basis that certain laws (for example zoning laws against toxic waste dumps) prevent foreign corporations from making a profit.
FTAA will mean capitalist businesses can freely relocate without penalty or cost. Relocation will be used as a threat against workers to try to smash organization and resistance. This will increase competition between workers in different countries, driving wages down in all countries. Services like health care, education and even access to drinking water will be opened to privatization, putting them under the control of the "free market"--in other words, to be bought up by corporations to make profit. And the FTAA will expand the patenting of seeds, native agriculture, and even genes of indigenous peoples, turning them into commodities owned and sold by capitalist business for profit.