CAFTA: A Tale of Two Horses
By UAW Region 8 Webmaster John Davis
There is an ancient story about the Trojan
Horse. This tale is about a 10-year war between the Greeks and Trojans.
While the Greeks fought bravely, they simply couldn’t penetrate
the walls around Troy. Finally, they had an idea to fool the Trojans.
The Greek Army packed up to go and left behind a huge statue of a horse
to the Trojans in honor of their victory. The Trojans opened the gate
and wheeled in the horse. Little did they know that the Greeks were
hiding inside. Once everyone was asleep, the Greek soldiers crept out
of their hiding place and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek
Army. They entered the city and overthrew the Trojans during the night.
The moral to this story is what you see isn’t always what you
get.
Another great example of a “Trojan horse” could be many
of the “family values” politicians in Washington. While
they present themselves as having “family values” their
actions show nothing of the sort.
On July 28, 2005 Congress passed the controversial CAFTA (Central American
Free Trade Agreement) bill. If you think CAFTA rhymes with NAFTA you
are right. Actually the similarities between NAFTA and CAFTA do not
end with the rhyming, because CAFTA is simply a six-nation expansion
of NAFTA. But, while workers in Mexico make $2.50 an hour, the average
wage of the workers represented in the CAFTA agreement is closer to
$2.50 per day. The six countries in the pact include Costa Rica, the
Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
The vote was close, narrowly passing 217-215. However, back tracking
the events of the vote simply underscores the crooked tactics of these
“family values” politicians. The vote actually began on
Wednesday July 27, 2005. When the usual 15 minute voting period had
passed at 11:17PM Wednesday night, CAFTA had been defeated 180 to 175,
with a large number of representatives not voting. Republican leaders
kept the vote open another 47 minutes to make certain it passed. Once
all the representatives had voted there still wasn’t enough votes
to pass it. Then the pressure was applied until six Republicans changed
their no votes to yes, bringing the final count to 217-215. Of the 202
House Democrats, 15 voted in favor of CAFTA, while 27 of 232 Republicans
voted against it.
Keeping the vote open is against House rules, but then those who currently
hold “the keys to the kingdom” pay no attention to the rules
anyway. Republican Tom DeLay of Texas predicted a close win on the morning
before the vote. DeLay’s record proves that rule breaking is a
common practice of his anyway. One of DeLay’s charges involves
the obstruction of justice in a case involving the rights of low-paid
sweatshop workers in Saipan (an island in the United States chain of
Mariana Islands in the Northern Pacific). He took campaign contributions
from Saipan’s chief lobbyist and blocked a Congressional Investigation
into the appalling conditions of workers there.
CAFTA supporter Kentucky Republican Representative Ron Lewis stated,
“CAFTA levels the playing field because it will eliminate tariffs
on 80% of the industrial and 50% of the agricultural imports from the
United States.” Last year the United States exported $15 billion
worth of products to South America while importing $1.15 trillion. Even
before these additional borders are opened we are seeing exports running
at 1% of the import levels.
On the morning after the vote White House Press Secretary Scott McCellan
bragged that “last night’s CAFTA vote was a real victory
for the American people.” He must have been reading old speeches
of former President Bill Clinton, because he said the same thing about
NAFTA.
Of Alabama’s seven representatives, five voted for the deal. Those
voting for CAFTA included:
4th District Rep. Republican
Robert Aderholt
6th District Rep. Republican
Spencer Bachus
1st District Rep. Republican
Jo Bonner
2nd District Rep. Republican
Terry Everett
3rd District Rep. Republican
Michael Rogers
Only 5th District Rep. Democrat Bud Cramer and 7th District Rep. Democrat
Artur Davis voted against the bill.
On June 19, 2005 Alabama Representative Robert Aderholt released a statement
on his website that said he was leaning against CAFTA and that he would
work with the White House on trade legislation to address issues that
are critical to our area. If this is the case, then what happened to
his vote?
On August 02, 2005 he announced an extension of safeguards limiting
sock imports from China aimed at protecting Fort Payne’s sock
industry. Costa Rica is a lot closer than China, so this toothless legislation
will do nothing to keep textile jobs at Fort Payne from moving south.
U.S. working families were not the only losers in the CAFTA vote. Part
of the provisions extend U.S. patent monopolies on pharmaceuticals,
so the drug companies will be able to prevent certain types of generic
drugs from being made available to patients in those countries. In addition,
the poor people in those countries will see their rights continued to
be eroded as they move to a corporate control over their governments.
When NAFTA was passed in 1993, the U.S. had a $20.6 billion trade deficit
with Mexico and Canada. In 2004, that number had jumped to $110.6 billion
or an increase of 538%. The result has been the loss of millions of
jobs and the reduction of pay on others. A company doesn’t have
to move work to Mexico if they can threaten to for the purpose of gaining
worker concessions on pay and benefits. So working families hurt while
corporations benefit. Real family values at work there.
While mythology has the story of the Trojan horse, here in the south
we have another horse story. That one is a saying that goes “Don’t
look a gift horse in the mouth.” Any horse trader will tell you
that you can judge the age of a horse by looking at his teeth. So in
other words, if someone gives you a horse, don’t insult them by
looking at the teeth to see if it is worth its upkeep or not.
These “family values” candidates are just like that Trojan
horse, in the sense that while they appear to be a gift on the outside,
they are filled with enemies on the inside. While we consider it bad
manners to “look a gift horse in the mouth”, the Trojans
should have took the time to look their gift horse in the mouth. By
doing so, they would have seen that what they saw was not what they
were getting.
Working families need to look in the mouth of some of these “family
values” candidates to see what really lurks inside. Taking the
tale of these two horses into account should be a warning to each of
us to be careful before picking a horse for a political race.
