This Week in the Americas

Labor’s May Day Call from Both Sides of the Border
By Laura Carlsen

“May Day” is an international signal of distress. When millions marched in the streets of cities across the United States, and hundreds of thousands protested throughout Mexico on May 1, International Workers’ Day, they sent out an urgent message to end a system of global competition based on eroding labor rights.

The immigrants' rights demonstrations and boycott in the United States galvanized a huge proportion of the estimated 12 million undocumented workers and 40 million-strong Latino population behind the simple concept of allowing workers and their families to live without the threat of imprisonment and deportation. In Mexico, the unusually large turnout for the May Day demonstrations resulted from the convergence of public outrage at the police repression of striking workers at a Michoacán steel mill, the recent death of 65 miners in a mine explosion, government intervention in internal union affairs, and the presence in Mexico City of the “Other Campaign” led by the Zapatistas.

Mexicans working in the United States and workers in Mexico share more than a common language and culture. They both work under conditions that deny them basic human and labor rights. And this year, they were both in the streets to change that.

Laura Carlsen directs the Americas Program of the International Relations Center, online at www.irc-online.org.

Indigenous Movements: Between Neoliberalism and Leftist Governments
By Raúl Zibechi

After scoring resounding victories, the indigenous movements of South America are encountering new challenges, both on an institutional and state level, that they have not been able to answer. Expanding on the wide range of experiences and deepening the exchange between organizations appear to be some of the possible routes that lie ahead.

Raúl Zibechi is a member of the Editorial Board of the weekly Brecha in Montevideo, professor and researcher on social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and adviser to several social groups. He is a monthly contributor to the IRC Americas Program (www.americaspolicy.org).

Thinking Outside the Box about Trade, Development, and Poverty Reduction
By Thomas I. Palley

Mainstream policy economics has been gradually lowering its claims about the positive impact of trade on development and poverty reduction. The new approach is a compassionate agenda that says if trade liberalization is to reduce poverty, it must be flanked by public investment in infrastructure and human capital. However, this new agenda raises numerous questions about how to finance public investments, whether these investments should be sequenced in advance of liberalization, and whether trade liberalization is desirable if the investments are not made. Most importantly, the new agenda still does not address the systemic critique that trade liberalization hinders development by eliminating important policy tools.

This policy paper proposes an alternative framework for thinking about trade, development, and poverty reduction. That framework emphasizes domestic commerce promotion and strategic value-chain analysis that focuses on how developing countries can capture more of the value they create. The paper also argues for incremental policy change rather than grand liberalizations. In a world of uncertainty, optimal decision theory advises “Go slow if you don’t know.” Finally, the paper proposes a tropical-products trade round that can produce a win-win outcome for both North and South.

Dr. Palley (www.thomaspalley.com) is the author of Plenty of Nothing: The Downsizing of the American Dream and the Case for Structural Keynesianism (Princeton University Press) and Post Keynesian Economics (Macmillan Press) and a regular contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus. This discussion paper originated as a comment on “Linkages between Trade, Development, and Poverty Reduction: Stakeholders' Views from Asia on Pro-Poor Trade Policies” by Marc P. Mealy (October 2005), circulated for discussion at an international symposium on “Exploring Linkages between Trade, Development, and Poverty Reduction” sponsored by CUTS International in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 24, 2005.

Letters from Our Readers

Re: Whose democracy is the United States Promoting in Nicaragua?

I found this article clearly demonstrated that the real interest of the United States in Nicaragua is not democracy but the continued exercise of power and control in this region—in hypocritical disregard for Nicaraguan sovereignty. Having spent some time in Nicaragua in 1987, when the U.S.-sponsored contras were on the attack, I feel disgusted, though not surprised, that even now, after all they have suffered, the United States cannot let Nicaraguans freely decide their own future.

—Noel Willis

If you would like to reproduce our articles for free, please cite the source, and let us know at americas@ciponline.org. We also welcome comments about our materials.

If you would like to unsubscribe, click on the link below that says "Update Profile/Unsubscribe". If you would like to subscribe for the first time to our multitude of topical lists, please go to http://app.streamsend.com/public/iKs8/Mr1/subscribe.

The Americas Policy Program is a fiscally sponsored program of the
Center for International Policy
http://www.ciponline.org/
Email: americas@ciponline.org
Tel. in Mexico: (52 55) 5324-1201, U.S. phone: (202) 536-2649

Donations can be mailed to: (please specify Americas Program)

Center for International Policy
1717 Massachussets NW, Suite 801
Washington, DC 20036

Or by visiting the site: https://app.etapestry.com/hosted/CenterforInternationalPolic/OnlineGiving.html