Earth to the NYT: don't pass the Peruvian FTA

the nyt's wrong-headed editorial, endorsing the peruvian free trade agreement...

Pass the Peruvian F.T.A.

The Peruvian deal would help expand trade between Peru and the United States, which today stands at about $9 billion. It would give American businesses greater access to Peru’s markets in everything from grains to tractors and other machinery.

Perhaps more important, the agreement would strengthen an essential ally in the combat against illegal narcotics in the Andes and tighten relations with one of the United States’ few remaining friends in South America — where Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez is gaining allies by spreading oil wealth around. In an open letter, all eight living former secretaries of state urged Congress to approve the Peru deal.

i'm thoroughly sick and tired of these bogus arguments for reducing yet another country to the status of u.s. chattel... american businesses do not need "greater access" to anywhere... they're already heavily exploiting peru, and all the fta will do is to make such exploitation easier... it certainly won't fix la oroya (see here and here)...

and then there's the bogus drug war, simply another way of shackling a country to the united states in the form of mountains of aid that also opens the door to the permanent stationing of u.s. troops as we are seeing in both colombia (here and here) and paraguay (see here)...

finally, could we PLEASE stop making hugo chávez the latest embodiment of the great satan...? why, ferchrissakes, do we ALWAYS have to have a great satan threatening us...? (never mind... i know why...)

let's stop the bullshit... we need to stop kidding ourselves about what these so-called "free" trade agreements are really meant to accomplish...

from my post of october 18...

The Peru Trade Agreement: Exploiting the Rainforest and Workers

Democratic leaders are threatening to try to pass a trade agreement with Peru that would give U.S. oil companies powerful new rights to exploit Peru’s Amazonian rainforest. It would also give Citibank the right to sue Peru if the country reverses the failed privatization of its Social Security system. No U.S. union or environmental, faith or development group supports the agreement. Peruvian indigenous leaders are calling for its rejection.

This agreement was negotiated by the Bush administration on the same principles as NAFTA. Some Democrats claim to have added labor and environmental standards, but these do nothing to fix many of the worst effects of the agreement.

when are we going to learn that the world is not ours to do with as we goddam well please...?

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