The US-Peru Free Trade Agreement

I found this great article, written by a Mississippi farmer, while doing some research on the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement. Here is a snippet of what he had to say.

As harmful as the Peru FTA will be for American farmers and ranchers, the effects on Peruvian farmers will be just as devastating. As an African American farmer, I am particularly concerned about the impact the agreement will have on the millions of Afro-Peruvian and indigenous farmers. The same international grain traders who dumped below-cost grain into Mexico after NAFTA, driving over a million farmers off the land and fueling illegal migration into the United States, will now do the same in Peru. Many of those displaced Peruvian corn and rice farmers facing economic catastrophe will be forced to migrate or grow illicit drug crops to survive. In July, four million Peruvians took to the streets to voice opposition to the FTA.

Farmers at home and abroad need a new direction on trade and agriculture policy that protects rural livelihoods and promotes food sovereignty. The first step in that new direction must be rejection of the Peru Free Trade Agreement and the upcoming agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia. Family farmers want to produce for our families and our local communities, not export markets. Free trade directly undermines and weakens renewed consumer demand for local and healthy foods. We have already outsourced our energy security. Why are we doing the same with our food security? Food sovereignty, not free trade, needs to be the foundational basis of our policies if we are to build a more healthful and just food system.

This 'free trade' pact was overwhelmingly passed in the House by a vote of 285 to 132 and in the Senate 77 to 18. All that is left is for Bush to sign which I am sure will be any day now.

Not waiting on the ink to dry, Bush is already pressing Congress to pass a 'free trade' agreement with Colombia. This agreement is not a sure thing, however. Colombia, it seems, has a little problem with
violence directed at the country's labor unions.

The current policy the United States maintains in relations with Latin America, with free trade being the only tool utilized while ignoring the economic disparities and the often devastating consequences that these agreements produce, will ultimately prove to be a disaster.