The CAFTA Report
Opponents hope Obama will renegotiate treaty
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The CAFTA Report
Opponents hope Obama will renegotiate treaty
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Opponents hope Obama will renegotiate
By Elyssa Pachico For The CAFTA Report (Nov. 10, 2008) The center-left Partido Acción Ciudadana is considering using the recent U.S. victory of Barack Obama as a possible launching point for renegotiating the Central American Free Trade Agreement. In October, the party's leader, Ottón Solís, created a 13-person task force that drafted a list of criteria for revising the treaty. Members of the task force included representations from the legislative assembly, the Costa Rican chamber of commerce, environmental organizations, the University of Costa Rica and other party members. The criteria was presented in the form of a letter on Oct. 8. “Our main criteria is that we are in favor of establishing commercial relations with the United States, but through other types of treaties and under different conditions,” says the letter's introduction. President-elect Obama voted against the Central American Free Trade Treaty when it came before the U.S. Senate in June 2005. During the presidential campaign, he criticized the treaty, as well as other free trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement. He toned down his rhetoric after public reaction in Mexico and Canada questioned whether an Obama presidency explicitly intended to re-negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. Tomás Dueñas, the Costa Rican ambassador to the United States, has said that it is impossible to know just how an Obama administration will approach the question of international trade treaties with Latin America, especially since the next president will probably give priority to a pressing domestic agenda. “Senator Obama doesn't know Latin America, and that's a little preoccupying,” said Dueñas. “He says things from the outside, without knowledge from up front, but let's put it positively. This is an opportunity to visit him, and invite him to come to Latin America – Costa Rica could possibly extend such an invitation.” The Central American free trade agreement would essentially eliminate tariffs for almost 80 percent of U.S. exported consumer products throughout a 10-year period. According to the task force's proposal, the free trade treaty currently protects interests of U.S. corporations while leaving Costa Rica vulnerable, particularly in the agriculture, medicine and environmental industries. “We propose a treaty that does not force Central American countries to turn into mere importers of subsidized agricultural products,” the proposal read. Most of the task force's criteria for a revised Central American free trade treaty focused on re-emphasizing Costa Rica's economic interests. The treaty should establish more standards for U.S. investors, the proposal said, and also take a tougher stance on offshore drilling and researching biodiversity for intellectual property purposes. Specifically, it criticized the treaty for imposing rules that limit the patenting of biodiversity in the region, by including the Budapest Treaty, which protects patents on micro-organisms, and the so-called veggie law, which protects patents on new breeds of plants. Both of these agreements favor large corporations over small farmers and native communities, the proposal argued. A revised Central American free trade treaty would also make it tougher for producers of generic medicines to earn patents, and also limit the influence of pharmaceutical companies, said the task force. They added that a revised treaty should also incorporate the same proposals as the North American Free Trade Agreement concerning work for immigrants. Currently, under the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement, U.S., Canadian and Mexican citizens working in certain professions are granted non-immigration status, which can be renewed up every three years in place of a green card. The current treaty also does not sufficiently appeal to Costa Rica's more pacifist and socialist impulses, the task force implied. “We propose a treaty that rejects whatever investments that contributes to war or to the weapons industry,” the proposal said. They also expressed concern that the treaty would lead to the privatization of more public services, such as the telecommunications and energy industry. Costa Rica's more proteccionist impulses are also not sufficiently supported in the current free trade agreement, the task force argued. They proposed a treaty that does not oblige states to submit themselves to the rulings of international courts or arbitration, if foreign investors demanded such a thing. Transnational courts should not have the final say on whether investors are truly fulfilling the terms of the treaty are not, the task force concluded. With the current deepening economic crisis in the United States, it remains unlikely that an Obama administration will assume an explicit stance towards the Central American free trade agreement in the upcoming months. However, the task force said that the U.S. financial crisis made re-negotiations even more urgent. “The international finance crisis reveals the urgency to revise these agreements that are based exclusively on a strategy that relies solely on forces within the market,” the proposal said. It also criticized the George Bush administration for what it described as a negotiating process that took place behind closed doors, without sufficient transparency. “The treaty's actual text has the seal of approval from the political and commercial policies of the Bush administration,” the proposal concluded. “It establishes relations that treats us as subjects and not as friends or partners, which is what we aspire to be with a Democratic administration.” |
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