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Currently viewing articles tagged with Nafta.
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US-Latin American Relations
One of the most striking aspect of contemporary US-Latin American relations is the profound divergence between the hopes, expectations and positive image of the Obama regime and the policies, strategies and practices which are being pursued. Many so-called progressive North American commentators and not a few Latin American writers have ignored the most elementary features of US foreign policy, and focused exclusively on the highly deceptive rhetoric of “change” and “new beginnings.” A serious understanding of US foreign policy toward Latin America requires a discussion of the main objectives of the Obama regime, the global priorities of imperial policy in times of multiple wars and world depression.
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Waiting for Hollywood: Canada’s Maquila Film Industry
Hollywood’s Canada, often referred to dreamily as “Hollywood North,” where money grows on palm trees that sprout out of snow banks, is a confused, unstable and increasingly contentious place, as seen in news from Canada’s film and television industry this past summer.
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The Final Takeover
On August 20, U.S. president George W. Bush, Mexican president Felipe Calderón and Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper met in Montebello, Quebec, for a two-day conference to ratify the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). The SPP, which was initiated in Waco, Texas, in 2005 by Bush, Canadian prime minister Paul Martin and Mexican president Vincente Fox, is a plan for continental integration or a North American Union along the lines of the European Union.
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Sharing the Plunder of the South
Dubbed “NAFTA Plus” by pundits in the popular press, the SPP is the continuing expansion of free-trade policies that were consolidated under NAFTA ten years earlier. The winners and losers of this ongoing trilateral power alliance remain the same — big capital in the North continues to expand its power at the expense of workers, their communities, and the environment in both the North and the South.
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Canada’s Contribution to “Democracy Promotion”
Since it signed NAFTA (1994) and joined the Organization of American States, the Canadian government has aligned its foreign policy with that of the United States more closely than at any point in recent history. At the same time, the Canadian government has taken an increasing interest in the affairs of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Some attention has been paid to things like joint military exercises in the Caribbean with the U.S. and other allies, support for the damaging practices of Canadian mining companies and the expanding presence of Canadian financial interests in the global South, but a newer area of Canada’s foreign-policy posture warrants scrutiny: Canada’s deepening involvement in the controversial field of international “democracy promotion” activities.
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Turning on Canada’s Tap
When Prime Minister Stephen Harper sat down with President George W. Bush in their first White House meeting on July 6, one of the “unmentionable” items on their agenda may well have been the question of bulk water exports from Canada. After all, Bush himself raised the issue back in July, 2001, when he talked “off the cuff” to reporters about growing water shortages in his home state of Texas and elsewhere in the country, saying he would like to begin negotiations with Ottawa on water exports from Canada. In Texas, he said, “water is more valuable than oil.” “A lot of people don’t need it, but when you head south and west, we need it,” Bush declared, adding that he “looked forward” to discussing the matter with then-prime minister Jean Chretien.
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NO to NAFTA
When the U.S. government failed to abide by the decision of the NAFTA Extraordinary Challenge Committee (ECC) on the issue of Canadian softwood-lumber exports by returning $5 billion it collected illegally, the Canadian public finally got the message: the North America Free Trade Agreement is a scam.
It’s official, folks: NAFTA was never about free trade. By the time its predecessor, the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, was negotiated, tariffs had already been eliminated or were negligible for all but a few commodities anyway. For Canada, the free-trade agreement was really only about gaining a dispute-settlement agreement that would protect Canadian exporters from arbitrary measures blocking their access to the huge American market. For the U.S., it was about guaranteed access to our energy.
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The workers need Chapter 11
As for all that self-righteous hot air about how B.C. teachers should set a better example by obeying the “law,” I can’t imagine a better lesson in democracy than watching a group of citizens collectively resisting injustice.
Karl Marx argued that under capitalism, the legal system was pretty much a tool of the ruling class, designed to protect property rights and keep workers in line. This is quite an oversimplification, but every now and then Marx comes close to the mark. If he could see what’s been happening in British Columbia, he’d probably say, “I told you so.”
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The Council of Canadians at 20
In March, 2005, the Council of Canadians will celebrate its twentieth anniversary. To mark the occasion, Canadian Dimension has chosen the Council as its Pathbreaker Towards a New Society.
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Why A Canada-U.S. Customs Union is a Bad Idea
The potential shutdown of the Canada-U.S. border is a prospect that sends shivers down the spine of corporate Canada. These fears crystallized in the days after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
Since that time, pressure has been mounting for a new deal between Canada and the United States to ensure that the border stays open in the future. A new wave of pro-integration literature has emerged with hypothetical proposals for a “strategic bargain” (in the words of the C.D. Howe Institute) with the U.S. across a number of policy areas, including border security, defence policy and immigration.
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