Summary
CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement), according to the Washington office on Latin America, promotes trade liberalization between the U.S. and the five Central American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Strongly backed by the Bush Administration, CAFTA is said to be modeled after 1994's North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Like NAFTA, CAFTA would remove tariffs on U.S. exports.
People in opposition of CAFTA, however, says the trade pact would increase the wage gap between U.S. and Central American workers and create losses in U.S. jobs. According to other organizations, the pact would also jeopardize rural farmers, especially the sugar industry, threaten the environment, suppress democracy and open the door to more disregard of workers' rights."The workers in Costa Rica do not want the good jobs in the U.S. to become the bad jobs in Central Americal," [Vargas Barrantes] said. "These jobs, that are supposedly going to be created in our country, will undoubtedly be very low paying and low quality jobs with no protection. The salaries would be four to five times lower that the average salaries that are in place now."See the full content of this document
Extract
Union Workers Speak On Cafta Trade Pact
On Wednesday, workers from organized labor unions in Central America ended the "CAFTA - We Don't Hafta" tour in San Antonio to urge Congress to vote down the proposed economic plan, a decision ...
See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
