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Talking Points #7
Costa Rica Protests U.S. Free Trade Agreement
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Last year Congress, at the behest of the Bush administration, approved the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which included five Central American nations plus the Dominican Republic. Costa Rica is the only participating government that hasn't ratified the free trade agreement, and it faces a growing and diverse popular movement seeking to block congressional approval of the trade accord.
- The coalescing popular movement against the free trade agreement questions the economic model that Washington has been promoting for the past quarter century, and is using the intensifying free trade debate in Costa Rica to spark discussion about a development model that would more faithfully reflect the country's proud political-economic history.
- Unlike most Latin American countries that dutifully applied the policies of the Washington Consensus, Costa Rica has set its own development course through public-sector investment in social services and in key economic sectors, resulting in a higher standard of living.
- Despite the negative impact for the country's majority, the neoliberal project has succeeded in downsizing the economic role of the state, which has created new room for the free market to act as the final arbiter of economic, social, cultural, and political relations.
- The free trade agreement would consolidate the dominance of the neoliberal model and consolidate it as the only accepted development path for the nation.
- A million-dollar publicity campaign supported by the government bombards the Costa Rica public with free-trade propaganda on behalf of its sponsors, including the pharmaceutical corporations and the national elite of Costa Rica.
- The struggle against free trade is bringing together a broad and diverse alliance of people and groups that calls for the defense of Costa Rica's national sovereignty and for the opportunity to create a new future under a social state based in the rule of law.
- There is a worrisome process of criminalization of social protest, as well as repression and intimidation of those who openly expresses concern about the agreement.
- Costa Rica has more to lose than other CAFTA countries due to its large public investment in the national welfare and relatively high standard of living.
To reprint this article, please contact americas@ciponline.org. The opinions expressed here are the author's and do not necessarily represent the views of the CIP Americas Program or the Center for International Policy.
For media inquiries, email americas@ciponline.org. |
Published by the Americas Program at the Center for International Policy (CIP, online at www.ciponline.org). Copyright © 2009, Center for International Policy. All rights reserved.
Recommended citation:
IRC, "Costa Rica Protests U.S. Free Trade Agreement," Americas Program Talking Points #7 (Silver City, NM: International Relations Center, March 23, 2007).
Web location:
http://americas.irc-online.org/aptp/4104
Production Information:
Author(s): IRC
Editor(s): Laura Carlsen, IRC
Production: Nick Henry, IRC |
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Latest Comments & Conversation Area
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| Name: |
Marc Edelman |
Date: May 15, 2007 |
| It would have been interesting to mention the upcoming referendum, in which Costa Rican voters will have the power to decide on whether to move forward with CAFTA. |
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| Name: |
Jeanne Barber |
Date: May 16, 2007 |
| Your talking points are very powerful. I hold you in the Light. |
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| Name: |
Marco Cabrera Geserick |
Date: May 16, 2007 |
| As a Costa Rican, I just hope that the referendum would be an honest expression of what the people want, and not a contaminated farse created by the propaganda paid by international corporations that do not care or understand our culture of peace, social democracy. A country that is proud of having an army of teachers and students, and not of soldiers and policeman. A country that loves its nature and wants to protect it instead of profiting from its destruction. |
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| Name: |
Marta Sanchez |
Date: May 18, 2007 |
Costa Ricans are in eve of a new page in their history: the referendum, our first victory upon the neoliberal class. This process is a people's conquest, not Arias initiative, as people abroad might be inclined to believe. Despite the INTENSIVE PRO-CAFTA campaign, the NO-TO-CAFTA has gone deep in our hearts. Our NO is becoming a most powerful symbol of self-affirmation and national pride...
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| Name: |
Ray Tapajna |
Date: Oct 01, 2007 |
| Reportedly the protest against Free Trade in Costa Rico is the largest ever in proportion with Costa Rico having only a few million people.
When will the Free-Traders understand the danger they are provoking. There was a revolution in Mexcio when NAFTA took over after many farmers lost their living due to the vast Trans-National Agricultural Corporations (with many subsidized) took over. The same happened in South Korea. Why fight a war in the Middle East if the people can only grow poppies as a cash crop or is this one of the reasons the wars go on.
In the first place, so called Free Trade is not trade as historically practiced and defined. Free Trade today is all about doing away with local value added economies and moving production from place to place based on the cheapest labor markets of the world. Free Traders still talk as if Globalization and Free Trade are something new. They are not. It has a long history of failures even before the unfair NAFTA and GATT trade agreements were passed in 1993 steered by President Clinton as if he was on a mission for the elder President Bush who proclaimed the New World Order.
Actually, the U.S. Federal Goverment itself sponsored the moving of factories out of the U.S. starting in 1956. It was supposed to be a temporary program but it never ended. It evolved into the Maquiladora factories in Mexico that used impoverished workers to make goods for the American consumers. Many U.S. manufacturers also sent their "dirty" manufacturing there to escape the ecology regulations in the U.S.
By 1992, more than 2,000 factories were moved prior to the passing of NAFTA and GATT. When NAFTA was passed the number zoomed to twice the amount - more than 4,000 factories- were quickly moved to just Mexico alone.
Soon afterwards, Presiden Clinton had to rush billions of dollars to Mexico to save the peso. Now President Bush the Second tells us there are jobs in the U.S. that Americans will not take. Already, many in the USA, working in places like Walmart depend on government assistance to survive with a new working poor class created in the U.S. Mexico reports a low unemployment rate just like the U.S. does so apparently there are jobs in Mexico Mexican workers will not take as they flood to the U.S. seeking economic survival. This is the real story behind Globalization and Free Trade. It has failed for more than fifty years. See Tapart News and Art that Talks at mobile user friendly summary of articles at http://tapsearch.newsmobile.filetap.com http://tapsmobileworld.filetap.com with related articles at
http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Ray_Tapajna |
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