Gee...cheap food. Psycho-Ralph is pissed! And the Washington Post tags along like it's news. The typical liberal idiocy? No, Congress is about to work on free trade in the Bush era. For the "unbiased" press, it's all about the Great Crusade:
<<Report: NAFTA Has Hurt Farmers
By Christopher Thorne
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, June 26, 2001; 11:01 a.m. EDT
WASHINGTON - Since the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted seven years ago, the pact has hurt farmers and ranchers in the United States, Canada and Mexico, according to a report released Tuesday by a consumer group.
Public Citizen, a nonprofit group founded by Ralph Nader that has been a vocal critic of NAFTA since its inception, issued the 55-page report.
It comes as the Bush administration is pressing Congress to grant President Bush "fast track" trade authority to help create the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a trade pact that would include almost every nation in the Western Hemisphere.
Administration officials dismissed the basis of Public Citizen's report, arguing that free trade was a key to the enormous economic growth of the last decade ? and could feed further economic vitality.
"If you reduce world trade barriers by a third, the world economy will grow by $600 billion," said Jim Dyke, spokesman for Commerce Secretary Donald Evans.
The report notes that commodity prices worldwide have plunged since NAFTA was enacted in 1994. For example, corn prices fell 20 percent, wheat prices dropped 28 percent and cotton prices saw a 38 percent decline over the last seven years.
"We now have a seven-year test run of NAFTA," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch.
"There were a lot of promises," she said. "But the real actual life experience shows that instead of the benefits we were promised, there have been problems.">> |
