**Previously recorded by Phyllis Schlafly // May 2005 **
The United States has been steadily losing its sovereign power over its own economy as a result of foreign trade agreements. Anti-American decisions have been handed down both by the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the 1995 World Trade Organization.
The World Trade Organization’s tribunals have ruled against the United States in 24 cases, and some of those decisions were very costly. Last fall, a World Trade Organization tribunal outlawed Utah’s ban on gambling, opening the door to millions of dollars in penalties against all states with anti-gambling regulations. Antigua and Barbuda had charged that Utah’s ban on gambling violates America’s obligation not to discriminate against foreigners who are providing “recreational services.”
A NAFTA international tribunal ordered the U.S. to open all U.S. roads to Mexican trucks, and that’s a danger to all who drive on our highways. Former Congressman Abner Mikva, who served on a NAFTA panel in 1998, said, “If Congress had any idea what they were voting on back then, they never would have passed NAFTA.”
Trade agreements are man-made rules created by politicians and lobbyists to serve the interests of the corporations that pay the lobbying costs. Free-trade lobbyists are now urging Congress to pass CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement), promising big trade with Central American countries. But how can anyone expect customers for U.S. products from countries where half the people live below the poverty line and the hourly wages are often below 50 cents per hour?
The real purpose of these free trade agreements is to allow multinational corporations to exploit the abundance of cheap labor and the scarcity of taxes and safety regulations in poor countries. If Congress cares about American jobs, Congress should reject all these foreign trade agreements such as the Central American Free Trade Agreement called CAFTA.
This post originally appeared at https://phyllisschlafly.com/national-sovereignty/foreign-trade-agreements-cost-u-s-jobs/
Ryan Hite