Free trade key to fighting poverty: Martin

[Antiloop33rpm]

www.cbc.ca/story/world/na...51104.html



Free trade key to fighting poverty: Martin
Last Updated Fri, 04 Nov 2005 19:51:19 EST
CBC News
Prime Minister Paul Martin defended free trade at the Summit of Americas in Argentina Friday, saying it's the best way to fight poverty.

Martin told his fellow hemispheric leaders that the summit's original focus, the expansion of free trade, is still valid and defended the idea against critics who charge it exploits workers and the poor.

"A Free Trade Agreement of the Americas is not about making the hemisphere safe for capitalists. It is about providing opportunities for our workers, and better goods and services for our consumers, from the bottom rung of the income ladder to the top.

"Freer and fairer trade will lift more human beings out of poverty than all of the assistance programs in the world combined."

Martin's speech contrasted with the words spoken by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who brought a crowd of thousands to its feet with a marathon speech decrying colonialism, imperialism and U.S. policy.

Chavez said the idea of creating a free trade area of the Americas is dead.

"The planet "is being destroyed under our own noses by the capitalist model, the destructive engine of development," Chavez said, adding that "every day there is more hunger, more misery thanks to the neo-liberal, capitalist model."

While Martin was at the summit preaching expanded free trade to opponents like Chavez, he was also trying to persuade the U.S. to comply with existing trade agreements.

Earlier in the day at a meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox, Martin took a thinly veiled dig at U.S. President George W. Bush's administration and its position on softwood lumber, saying free trade won't work if any one player decides to ignore the rules.

"The fact is that President Fox, myself, President Bush, all of us believe strongly in the free trade of the Americas. But we know that it's got to be based on rules – and rules that are listened to," Martin said.

Martin's government has criticized Washington for ignoring a NAFTA ruling that U.S. tariffs imposed on Canadian softwood imports are unjustified.

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

The Globe had a picture today of Chavez and Maradona that was a source of much amusement in my household (Maradona has a huge tattoo of Che on his right arm, and Chavez's broadsides often seem lifted from old Che speeches). I have family who live in Mar del Plata, and I have to wonder whether my parents wish to retire there now. The weather there is incredible, apparently.

 

[Mislav]

"A Free Trade Agreement of the Americas is not about making the hemisphere safe for capitalists. It is about providing opportunities for our workers, and better goods and services for our consumers, from the bottom rung of the income ladder to the top.

What a bunch of BS and who better to say it than Paul Martin. However it doesn't surprise as he is to Bush whatever Ron MacLean is to Don Cherry.

 

[EnviroTO]

I agree that free trade helps the economies in third world and developing nations. What free trade doesn't address is paying for social systems in the country being exported to (i.e. can't collect income tax on employees making goods for sale in Canada if they don't work in Canada) and doesn't ensure the growing economy in third world or developing countries gets passed on to the workers. If taxation, social benefits, and wage scales (the ratios between classes) were the same the world over then free trade would work perfectly at balancing but if upper management is in the US and the workers are in Uruguay the benefits of the growing economy in Uruguay aren't realized until there is a labour shortage... at which point the factories probably wont be opening in Uruguay anymore because there is some cheaper labour elsewhere. In addition, unless our social system can be fully supported by sales tax, a growing number of imports equals a dwindling tax base.

I agree with free trade in general but there needs to be taxation on imports to a level that balances the social conditions at the country of origin. The money collected can go into foreign non-monetary aid programs. Canada will have a hard time competing with a country that has no social system and no minimum standards of living otherwise.

 

[spmarshall]

Since the Americans in particular only advocate "free trade" only when it suits them - not just the lumber issue, but more importantly agricultural subsidies that dump American (and European) crops on poor countries whose own farmers can't compete, free trade is still largely a myth.

I'll agree with Enviro that whole free trade could result in the race to the bottom as transnationals take advantage of "free trade" to ship from countries with no worker protections or social net.