1. The FTAA Expands a Proven Disaster

The FTAA is essentially an expansion of NAFTA. But NAFTA has proven anightmare for working families and the environment. A look at NAFTA'slegacy shows why these kind of "free trade" agreements should beopposed. Working families suffer: In the US, almost 400,000jobs have been lost since NAFTA, with workers' new jobs paying, onaverage, only 77 percent of the wages of their earlier employment; inMexico since NAFTA, one million more Mexicans earn less than theminimum wage, and 8 million families have slipped from the middleclass into poverty. The environment suffers: In the maquiladorazones along the US-Mexico border, the increased pollution and theimproper disposal of chemical wastes has dramatically increased ratesof hepatitis and birth defects. NAFTA should be repealed, notexpanded.

2. The Agreement Is Being Written in Secret

Despite repeated calls for the open and democratic development oftrade policy, the FTAA negotiations have been conducted insecret. Discussions around the FTAA began in 1994 when US tradeofficials, emboldened by the passage of NAFTA, gathered tradeministers from across the hemisphere in Miami for a summit. Talksheated up in 1998, when trade ministers from the hemisphere met againin Santiago, Chile. Since then, negotiations have been taking placeevery few months, and the first working draft--with countries'positions already set--will be ready in April 2001 in Quebec City,Canada. Although Congress hasn't set goals for US participation,hundreds of corporate representatives are involved in the process,advising the US negotiators and helping to write the rules. At thesame time, however, citizens groups, and even the United Nations, havenot been able to incorporate their concerns and suggestions into thetalks.

3. The Agreement Will Undermine Labor Rights and Cause Further Job Loss

The NAFTA experience demonstrates how basic labor rights and theinterests of working families are eroded by "free trade" agreementsthat lack enforceable labor protections. Corporations move high-payingjobs to countries with lower wages and bust unionization drives withthreats to transfer production abroad. According to a study conductedunder the auspices of NAFTA's labor side agreement, 90 percent of 400plant closings or threatened plant closings in the US in a five-yearperiod occurred illegally in the face of a union organizingdrive. This "race-to-the-bottom" will accelerate under FTAA ascorporations pit exploited workers in Mexico against even moredesperate workers in countries such as Haiti and Guatemala.

4. The Agreement Will Exacerbate Environmental Destruction

The export-driven growth model promoted by "free trade" agreements andthe policies of the World Bank and the IMF have destroyed ecosystemsaround the world. Under this unsustainable model, many countries inthe Global South cut down their forests, overfish their waters andexploit other natural resources to earn hard currency. Since NAFTA, 15US wood product companies have set up operations in Mexico, andlogging there has increased dramatically. In the Mexican state ofGuerrero, 40 percent of the forests have been lost in the last eightyears, and massive clearcutting has led to soil erosion and habitatdestruction.

5. The Agreement Will Put Lives at Risk

The FTAA would expand NAFTA's rules on monopoly patents to the wholehemisphere. This means that companies with a patent in one countrywill have the exclusive right to market their products throughout thehemisphere. Intellectual property rules are especially important forthe pharmaceutical industry, which uses the regulations to stopcountries from producing less expensive versions of name branddrugs. Currently Brazil is one of the top manufacturers of the typesof generic drugs that are essential for the majority of the world'spoor who can't afford drugs produced by US companies. If expandedintellectual property laws prevent the Brazilian government frommaking life-saving drugs, the AIDS crisis and tuberculosis epidemicswill worsen, and people around the world will suffer.

6. The Agreement Will Lead to Privatization of Essential Services

The FTAA is expected to contain commitments to privatize services suchas education, health care, and energy and water utilities. Suchderegulation would especially harm working class communities andcommunities of color. In some countries, these privatizations arealready occurring, and those least able to pay for vital services arethe ones who suffer the most. When Bolivia privatized its waterutility, water rates increased 200 percent, leading to riots thatresulted in six deaths.

7. The Agreement Will Provide a Backdoor for the MAI

The FTAA may provide a back door for establishing in the WesternHemisphere provisions of the Multilateral Agreement on Investments(MAI), a kind of "investors' rights" treaty defeated by citizens in1998. Already, the US trade representative has said the FTAA willinclude provisions for "investor-to-state" lawsuits. These allowcorporations to sue governments for compensation if they feel that anygovernment action, including the enforcement of public health andsafety laws, cuts into their profits. Such lawsuits could be used todilute US laws that promote local businesses.

8. The Agreement Will Spread the Use of GMOs

US trade negotiators are trying to force other countries to acceptgenetically modified organisms (GMOs). But environmental groups warnthat these technologies haven't been adequately tested, and foodsecurity experts say GMOs could increase hunger in poornations. Farmers have traditionally saved their seeds from year toyear, but as multinational corporations patent GM seeds these farmerswill be forced to pay for seeds, pushing them further into dependency.

9. The Agreement Will Increase Poverty and Inequality

"Free trade" is not working for the majority of the world. During themost recent period of rapid growth in global trade andinvestment--1960 to 1998--inequality worsened internationally andwithin countries. Without debt cancellation and rules to curtailrampant capital speculation, countries in the Global South will remaindependent on the Global North, inequality will increase, and the hopeof achieving sustainable development will be farther off.

10. There Are Proven Alternatives

Policy makers and pundits often try to convince us that corporateglobalization is an inevitable phenomenon. In fact, the currenteconomic processes known as "globalization" have been defined anddriven by a very small number of corporations. Now people around theworld are creating an alternative grassroots globalization. Citizens'groups from across the Western Hemisphere have written an "AlternativeAgreement for the Americas" that offers a picture of what sociallyresponsible and environmentally sustainable commerce would looklike. You can find the document on the Global Exchange website.