Handelsaftalen mellem Canada, Mexico og USA fylder 20 år, og udover negative sociale konsekvenser har den givet virksomheder magt over lovgivning for forbrugersikkerhed og miljø gennem en særlige ordning, der tillader virksomheder at sagsøge stater, konkluderer amerikansk NGO i rapport.
Den amerikanske civilsamfundsorganisation Public Citizen har udarbejdet en rapport om den nordamerikanske frihandelsaftale NAFTA, og den bliver udgivet i anledning af den store og banebrydende frihandelsaftales 20 års jubilæum.
NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) skabte øjeblikkeligt en betydelig modreaktion, bl. a. i form af Zapatisternes oprør i Mexico. Aftalen bliver debatteret intenst i anledningen af den runde fødselsdag i de tre involverede lande.
Det følgende er udpluk fra Public Citizens pressemeddelelse.
NAFTA at 20: One Million Lost U.S. Jobs, Higher Income Inequality, Doubled Agriculture Trade Deficit With Mexico and Canada, Displacement and Instability in Mexico, and Corporate Attacks on Environmental Laws
On the eve of the North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) 20th anniversary (Jan. 1), a new Public Citizen report shows that not only did promises made by proponents not materialize, but many results are exactly the opposite.
Such outcomes include a staggering $181 billion U.S. trade deficit with NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada, one million net U.S. jobs lost because of NAFTA, a doubling of immigration from Mexico, larger agricultural trade deficits with Mexico and Canada, and more than $360 million paid to corporations after “investor-state” tribunal attacks on, and rollbacks of, domestic public interest policies.
Scores of NAFTA countries’ environmental and health laws have been challenged in foreign tribunals through the controversial investor-state dispute resolution system. More than $360 million in compensation to investors has been extracted from NAFTA governments via “investor-state” tribunal challenges against toxics bans, land-use rules, water and forestry policies and more.
More than $12.4 billion is currently pending in such claims, including challenges of medicine patent policies, a fracking moratorium and a renewable energy program.
The export of subsidized U.S. corn did increase under NAFTA, destroying the livelihoods of more than one million Mexican campesino farmers and about 1.4 million additional Mexican workers whose livelihoods depended on agriculture.
The desperate migration of those displaced from Mexico’s rural economy pushed down wages in Mexico’s border maquiladora factory zone and contributed to a doubling of Mexican immigration to the U.S. following NAFTA’s implementation.
Though the price paid to Mexican farmers for corn plummeted after NAFTA, the deregulated retail price of tortillas – Mexico’s staple food – shot up 279 percent in the pact’s first 10 years.
Facing displacement, rising prices and stagnant wages, more than half the Mexican population, and more than 60 percent of the rural population, still falls below the poverty line, despite the promises that NAFTA would bring broad prosperity to Mexicans.
Real wages in Mexico have fallen significantly below pre-NAFTA levels as price increases for basic consumer goods have exceeded wage increases.
A minimum wage earner in Mexico today can buy 38 percent fewer consumer goods than on the day that NAFTA took effect.
Despite promises that NAFTA would benefit Mexican consumers by granting access to cheaper imported products, the cost of basic consumer goods in Mexico has risen to seven times the pre-NAFTA level, while the minimum wage stands at only four times the pre-NAFTA level.
Yet despite overwhelming evidence of NAFTA’s failure, the Obama administration has made it a priority for next year to sign the TPP, a sweeping pact with 11 Pacific Rim nations premised on expanding the NAFTA model.
Past efforts to expand NAFTA throughout Latin America via a Free Trade Area of the Americas and to Asia via an Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Free Trade Agreement failed as the major economies in each region sought to avoid the damage they observed NAFTA causing within the United States and Mexico.
Læs hele pressemeddelelsen og download rapporten her: http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/pressroomredirect.cfm?ID=4050
