[Congressional Record: October 1, 2007 (Senate)]
[Page S12372-S12373]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr01oc07-141]
COSTA RICA AND TRADE POLICY
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in this Chamber about a
story unfolding right now in Costa Rica.
This country of 4 million people is having a national referendum on
October 7--next week--on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, the
trade deal this Congress passed by a narrow margin a couple of years
ago.
CAFTA stipulates that the last signatory country must approve the
deal no later than 2 years after the first signatory country implements
the agreement.
So over the past 2 years, the United States, El Salvador, Honduras,
Guatemala, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic enacted the NAFTA
expansion.
The Costa Rican people have resisted it.
My colleagues have seen news reports this weekend about a massive
rally of fair traders--people who want trade but under different
rules--against CAFTA in Costa Rica. Some 150,000 citizens in a country
of 4 million people spoke out expressing their opposition to the
agreement--150,000 people--and most thought that a conservative
estimate.
The pro-CAFTA government gave up efforts to pass CAFTA in the
legislature after continued protest against it, including a 2-day
general strike last October.
Their is strong opposition to a NAFTA-style agreement. In fact, the
issue of whether to approve CAFTA has stirred up such political
upheaval that the Government chose to go to a public
referendum instead of going to the legislature. Legislators not unlike
our peers in Congress did not want to face voters in their home
district if they voted for the pact.
The agreement must be implemented as domestic law--meaning Costa Rica
has to enact new laws in order for the trade agreement to take effect.
That bothers hundreds of thousands of Costa Ricans because they have in
place today strong laws on health, on the environment, on education, on
privatization, on generic drugs, on all the kinds of issues that have
helped to build the middle class in Costa Rica.
Costa Rica is a progressive country. More than a third of its land is
protected in national parks. More than 90 percent of its electricity
comes from renewals. Costa Rica's high literacy rates are well known,
and it has a strong health care system. Its life expectancy is not too
different than our own in this country.
Costa Rica's citizens have also seen what NAFTA--the North American
Free Trade Agreement--did to Mexico's middle class, and what especially
it has done to Mexican farmers, small peasant family farmers.
These factors have created strong resistance to entering into an
agreement that can handcuff policymakers from setting progrowth,
prodevelopment policies in their own country.
As this Chamber knows, NAFTA/CAFTA-style deals are about a whole lot
more than just tariffs and quotas. These agreements are top-down pacts
that lock in new rules on investment, on food safety, on services, and
on procurement.
This month, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
issued a report warning developing countries to be wary of bilateral
and regional free-trade deals as they are currently written. They
warned them against signing these agreements.
The U.N. report cited NAFTA as an example of a trade agreement that
may have short-term benefits but does long-term harm. You hear a lot of
talk from the Bush administration that free trade is necessary to
address poverty. You hear that the ``people,'' as they say, of these
mostly poor countries want trade deals like NAFTA.
But what we are seeing in Costa Rica right now is what we are seeing
around the globe when it comes to trade deals that purely and simply
give too much power to multinational corporations. What we are seeing
is a loud and clear demand for change.
We see it in the WTO negotiations, which continue to falter as
developing countries resist WTO expansion. We see it in Ohio--in Lorain
and Mansfield, in Youngstown and Lima, in Dayton and Chillicothe--where
hard-working men and women who have made America the strongest Nation
in the world are betrayed by Washington's trade policy.
Presidents from both parties have entered into trade agreements,
agreements such as NAFTA, promising they would create millions of new
jobs and enrich communities. Instead, too many of these agreements, too
often, have cost millions of jobs and devastated communities.
Two years ago, when I served in the House, we created a bipartisan
coalition against the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Religious
organizations, labor unions, environmentalists, small businesses, human
rights advocates, and small manufacturing companies were part of this
bipartisan opposition.
The opposition that was evident in Washington and, more importantly,
in congressional districts around the country caused the Bush
administration to make deals and promises and--in the words of one
sympathetic lawmaker to the Bush administration--helped us so that we
``twist[ed] arms until they break into a thousand pieces.''
The Bush administration got what it wanted when it pushed NAFTA
through. But we won the debate. Today in Costa Rica, we are seeing
similar scare tactics taken by the pro-CAFTA administration.
A memo was leaked to the Costa Rican press, and it has caused an
uproar for good reason. In this memo, the Costa Rican Vice President
and a Member of Congress outlined a plan to President Arias that uses
fear, threats to local officials, and attacks on CAFTA opposition as
tactics to win the referendum.
The Second Vice President, one of the memo's authors, had to resign
from his government office while officials investigate whether any laws
had been broken.
The memo states clearly:
The mayor that does not win his canton--
Which is their political jurisdiction--
The mayor that does not win his canton (precinct) will not
get a penny from the government in the next three years.
It is pretty simple. The memo says the government then needs to
``stimulate fear'' among Costa Ricans. It even lists the kinds of fear
that are effective: Stimulate fear. Create fear of the loss of jobs if
CAFTA is not approved. Stimulate a fear of violence and civil strife.
Stimulate a fear of Chavez and Castro if Costa Rica does not approve
CAFTA.
Specifically, there has been an informational campaign in Costa Rica
that if this agreement fails, then the United States will punish Costa
Rica by revoking the existing trade benefits that Costa Rica has under
the Caribbean Basin Initiative. That is simply patently false.
Costa Rica will continue to benefit from CBI because it is the law.
It is a permanent program. Its existence depends on the U.S. Congress,
not an edict from the Bush administration.
These tactics should sound familiar to my colleagues who recall the
CAFTA debate. These tactics make it very clear that what is at stake--
in Costa Rica this week and when this Chamber takes up issues of trade
and globalization--is that there are very different competing
ideologies. There is the NAFTA ideology and there is the fair trade
ideology.
In truth, I believe the defeat of this referendum may actually do
more to improve Costa Rican-U.S. relations because it is clear that
there is a fair trade movement on the rise in this Chamber, in the
House of Representatives, and surely across the land. Look at elections
last year in the Presiding Officer's State of Rhode Island, in Ohio, in
Pennsylvania, in Missouri, and in Minnesota and Virginia and Montana,
because it is clear there is a fair trade movement on the rise in this
country and in Costa Rica.
We have reason to hope. If the referendum is defeated, we can create
a new trade agreement that benefits workers and communities, small
businesses, religious folks, people who care about an economy that
works for more of us, that helps us to create a solid, strong middle
class, not just supporting the multinational corporations.
We have a choice. The people of Costa Rica have a choice there this
week. We can continue with the fair trade model or we can reject the
NAFTA and CAFTA models and work together on a new trade deal, a fair
trade deal.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
