In this issue:

• Panama FTA – call your members of Congress!
• Summit of the Americas – Obama wants to work on Bush FTAs?"
• NAFTA Flu" – free trade and the swine flu
• First CAFTA Investor-State Case: Pacific Rim vs. El Salvador
• Buy American - Ensuring and Expediting our Economic Recovery
  Article submitted by Jim Woodward, USW District 12
• For further reading
   

Panama FTA – call your members of Congress!

The Panama FTA is looming!! Our members of Congress are talking about it more every day, after the administration let it be known that it intends to move on the pending FTAs (see next article for more info).

We need to act now to convince our members of Congress that this is neither the right time to pass NAFTA-style trade agreements, nor the right one for the Obama administration to start with! Please call the Capitol Switchboard and ask to speak to your member of Congress - toll-free: 1-866-220-0044.

Please contact Stephanie and report back on the comments you hear. Call 206-227-3079!

Summit of the Americas – Obama wants to work on Bush FTAs?

Until just a few weeks ago, it was unclear what the new Administration's views on trade policy would be. However in late April, just after the Summit of the Americas which President Obama attended, his top trade official Ron Kirk made several statements indicating that fair trade changes may not be forthcoming.

"Now is a time when we have to be very careful about any signals of protectionism," Obama said at a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa. "My hope is that as our advisers and staffs work this through that there is a way to do this that is not disruptive."

Kirk commented that NAFTA is unlikely to be renegotiated, and said that he hopes the pending FTAs with Panama, Colombia, and Korea can be voted on soon. This is a change from Obama's election time statements indicating that he was open to renegotiating NAFTA, and planning to make other fair trade changes.

Please respond to the action alert above, and remind your member of Congress that we need meaningful, substantive changes to our trade policy. Our opportunity for change is now, but we need help from fair trade supporters to make it happen!

"NAFTA Flu" – free trade, agri-business and swine flu

Recently some interesting connections have been posited about connections between NAFTA, agribusiness, and the current swine flu epidemic. Swine flu is said to have originated from a farm in Veracruz, Mexico operated by a Virgina-based corporation called Smithfield Farms. Smithfield farms opened the “Carroll Ranches” in the Mexican state of Veracruz through a new subsidiary corporation, “Agroindustrias de México,” just after NAFTA was implemented in 1994.

The current flu virus is being nicknamed "NAFTA flu" because of the new push for huge agribusiness farms that followed NAFTA, and led small family farms to be replaced by much larger ones with more suspect health and sanitation policies. Force-feeding pigs antibiotics is thought to have enabled a new, mutated virus to become immune to existing antibiotics and to be transmittable to humans.

For more information on these connections see articles in For Further Reading.

First CAFTA Investor-State Case: Pacific Rim vs. El Salvador

Canaidan mining company Pacific Rim, acting through a U.S-based subsidiary, announced this week that it will sue the Salvadoran government over the government's refusal to issue mining permits for the El Dorado silver and gold mine in the department of Cabañas. The case will be heard by a special international arbitration court established by the 2006 U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

Pacific Rim Mining has yet to announce the amount it plans to sue for, but it claims to have already invested over $75 million in exploration for the mining project. CAFTA rules allow companies to sue governments not only for lost investments, but also for lost anticipated revenues that could have resulted from those investments. Legal analysts estimate that Pacific Rim could potentially seek hundreds of millions of dollars from the Salvadoran government.

Metals mining in general, and the El Dorado mine specifically, has been fiercely opposed by Salvadoran civil society, including the Catholic Church. Key civic organizations maintain that the environmentally-responsible mining techniques (called “Green Mining”) that Pacific Rim claims to practice are a farce, and that a silver and gold mine at El Dorado would result in cyanide contamination of drinking water.

The El Dorado site is located in the basin of the Lempa River, the country's most important source of water. The Lempa provides invaluable irrigation water for much of El Salvador's agricultural industry, as well as drinking water for over half of the population of the greater San Salvador metropolitan area.

Buy American - Ensuring and Expediting our Economic Recovery
Article submitted by Jim Woodward, USW District 12

It’s no secret that creating and preserving jobs is the number one goal of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Economists and the public are in agreement; we’ll see better job creation and overall economic recovery if we spend these dollars on products and services created here, rather than abroad.

The United Steelworkers union has been pursuing “Buy American” commitments for the spending of these dollars in cities, counties, and states all across the U.S. To date, “Buy American” resolutions have been passed by well over 400 government bodies.

The “Buy American” effort cuts across all party lines; it’s truly bipartisan, and speaks directly to the 84% of Americans who agree with our efforts to keep and create jobs with these economic recovery investments. Now our members seeking support in Washington State.

We have met with over 40 cities, county councils and school districts. Additionally we have been circulating a “Buy American” petition in the Washington State legislature with the goal being to have a bipartisan petition that we can present to the Governor. We will be asking the Governor to take appropriate action, whether a directive to state agencies, or an executive order, to ensure that the spending of federal economic monies in Washington State go to purchase of U.S. products and services. 

To help or view our progress, please log onto www.makeourfuturework.org or www.usw.org.        

For further reading

"Panama FTA would undermine US efforts to Stop Offshore Tax Haven Abuse" – Public Citizen's recent report on Panama

R G Wallace, "The Agro-Industrial Roots of Swine Flu H1N1," 26 April 2009

http://therealnews.com/t/ - Click on "Agri-Biz at root of swine flu?" for an excellent short video.

"Trade Official Says No Need to Redo NAFTA"

"Panama FTA would undermine US efforts to Stop Offshore Tax Haven Abuse" – Public Citizen's recent report on Panama