NationStates Jolt Archive

Let the flames- er, games- begin!

Please feel free to share your thoughts, agree, disagree, or whatever. But, whatever you do, please kindly refrain from flaming.

Please explain what the FTAA is.

Please explain what the FTAA is.

Since you asked so politely (I appreciate good manners :) ) I'll be more than happy to explain.

You're familiar with NAFTA, right? The FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) is a proposed expansion of NAFTA to include every nation in the Western Hemisphere except Cuba (although many speculate that Cuba will be added eventually). Think of it as a Western Hemisphere version of the Europeon Union. Congress will vote on it in 2005.

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considering that america doesn't even go along with nafta except when it works in its interests, i don't think it'll impact you guys very much.

Anyone? Come on, I'm interested in what you guys think.

Free trade agreements... when will this country ever learn that we only hurt ourselves by committing to that shit. all FTAs must be burninated.

I think threat is a poor choice of words because you haven't defined what the current situation is and how the FTAA conceivably threatens it. Are you worried that the US is sacrificing some of its sovereignty and independence in order to facilitate easier trade relations? We've already done that with, as someone else mentioned NAFTA, and to an even greater degree, the WTO. Disagreements in the WTO has lead to changes in US law more than once already.

The question, in this case, is do the benefits of freer trade policies outweigh the loss of individual sovereignty? Honestly I don't know the answer to that because I haven't looked at it seriously enough yet, but I tend to oppose it for different reasons.

The lesson I've learned from NAFTA and the WTO is that you'd better include labor and environmental protections in the body of the treaty with major repercussions for violators. Otherwise you'll have what's happened to the US in the last 10 years as far as manufacturing is concerned. It's a race to the bottom for labor prices, and that hurts everyone.

I think threat is a poor choice of words because you haven't defined what the current situation is and how the FTAA conceivably threatens it. Are you worried that the US is sacrificing some of its sovereignty and independence in order to facilitate easier trade relations? We've already done that with, as someone else mentioned NAFTA, and to an even greater degree, the WTO. Disagreements in the WTO has lead to changes in US law more than once already.

The question, in this case, is do the benefits of freer trade policies outweigh the loss of individual sovereignty? Honestly I don't know the answer to that because I haven't looked at it seriously enough yet, but I tend to oppose it for different reasons.

The lesson I've learned from NAFTA and the WTO is that you'd better include labor and environmental protections in the body of the treaty with major repercussions for violators. Otherwise you'll have what's happened to the US in the last 10 years as far as manufacturing is concerned. It's a race to the bottom for labor prices, and that hurts everyone.

Free trade is fundamentally bad for the average worker. IE: GM plants in the US have be shut down and moved to mexico cause they can pay less and import back to the US with no tariffs. Free trade has little benefit to the strong and large benefit to the weak (in terms of national economies that is).

I don't think it will significantly affect the United States sovreignity, it may affect that of the other nations involved however. Personally, I don't think that the term "free trade" even accuratly describes the concept, as tarrifs don't actually prevent freedom in my opinion...you can still trade, just have to be able to compete with possibly cheaper domestic products.

I like the idea. It means that goods can freely move from one part of the Western Hemisphere to the next, as will investments. NAFTA worked fairly well to this end, too.
Also, if one of the other members gets into a financial pickle, it'd obligate the US to help. Remember the Mexico currency crisis of 1996, when the US pretty much bailed them out? It happened in part due to NAFTA. FTAA will do the same thing. In fact, the only thing I don't like about it is its name. I can't form a word with FTAA, unlike NAFTA.