NFU Statement: Salazar to Lead Interior Department — 12|18|08
Friday, January 16, 2009
Trade Agreements
We urge the use of the United States’ economic strength, in cooperation with our private sector and other nations, to promote the economic development of less-developed nations. We support ending the embargo and normalizing trade relations with Cuba.
We oppose the exploitation of developing countries by forcing them to abandon domestic food security.
CAFTA
The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is an expansion of NAFTA to five Central American nations (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua), and the Dominican Republic. This continuation of failed trade policies of the past was signed May 28, 2004, and passed through the U.S. House of Representatives by one vote in the middle of the night by the U.S. Congress on July 27, 2005. The proponents of this agreement oversold its benefits, but still it faced huge opposition in the countryside.
CAFTA is another piece of the Free Trade Agenda puzzle that trades away American producers’ ability to compete fairly in a global economy. It forces them to compete with producers from countries which have a cost-of-production advantage over the United States because they are not required to meet the same labor and environmental standards.
NFU is fighting against this trade policy that promotes the outsourcing of American food production. We would like to see Congress and the President work to develop trade agreements that stop the race to the bottom of commodity prices and that benefit rural America.
NAFTA
The North American Free Trade Agreement, (NAFTA) which went into effect in 1994 is a free trade agreement among Canada, the United States and Mexico. The agreement eliminated duties on half of all U.S. goods shipped to Mexico and gradually phases out tariffs over a period of about 14 years.
NAFTA promoters promised it would create hundreds of thousand of new, high wage U.S. jobs, raise living standards in the United States, Mexico and Canada, improve environmental conditions and transform Mexico from a poor developing country into a booming new market for U.S. exports. None of these promises came true. Years later, for the first time in 50 years, the United States now exports more than it imports, and we have a record trade deficit. Further continuation of these failed trade policies — such as the adoption of CAFTA — are nothing but a race to the bottom for commodity prices.
NFU supports fair trade policies, which create a level playing field, rather than the so-called Free Trade Agenda, which forces U.S. producers to compete with nations that do not enforce the same quality standards as they have to follow. 
