Porfio_Rubirosa said:
Tony C and the Americans talk a good game - all principled and everything - but the facts aren't so supportive of US free trade policy.
Tony's truck farmers were remiss in that they didn't have the Republican political clout to obtain massive subsidies in the same way the Florida sugar plantation owners did. Sugar in Florida - which has to be the most expensive and environmentally unsound place on the planet to produce it - continues to be a viable business in this most artificial way. And even then, the sugar barons have to bring in semi-legal foreign workers and treat them like sh*t instead of hiring Americans and paying them the legal minimum wage. How does this benefit the world economy, principles of "free trade" or any other Americans other than the sugar barons and Republican politicians (who can count on continued contributions to keep the cycle going)? It certainly is unfair to the Dominican Republic, and will continue to be unfair through any proposed free trade agreement.
Oh no, my American friends. Free trade cannot be viewed as a matter of tariffs alone. Until the US does its part in eliminating artificial subsidies and in eliminating the exclusion of certain "protected" industries from free trade, it's not "free trade" at all, is it? Rather, it's a system of political and economic coersion hiding behind the (I would agree) desirable banner of "free trade".
So what else it new?
I agree with you too.
What I'm about to say is what helps brand me an "anti-American" in the minds of some here, but in reality I'm not. But what the heck, I'll just express my opinion!
I don't mind all of this free-trade talk, as long that there is a real free trade. If market forces is the way of the modern Capitalism, than its true, the US should drop all its subsidies and bail outs towards any of its companies. A good example would be the airline industry. The American airline industry under a real free-trade would have collapased after 9/11. However, the airlines went to DC and got money that the market forces were not supplying to them, money that made it possible for them to survive that ordeal artificially.
Also, due to the extent the global economy has expanded, there should probably be no farms in the first world anymore under a real Free-Trade. Think about it, first world farms are subsidiesed to be a able to compete against third world farming. If market forces were truly in place, most first world farmers would have been out of business and the third world would be perfecting the one industry they seem to know best which is farming. (Most developing countries have Farming and their number 1 or 2 most important industry employing in most cases up to half the populations respectively).
However, this is just wishful thinking. Such thing won't happen, period. I mean, in the book named "The House of Morgan" by Ron Chernow in Chapter 7, he very precisely describe how the Depression came to being and how US bad economic policies exacerbated the depression and it was interesting (I re-read that chapter last night btw), the US had a free-trade status with many countries in the roaring twenties, but in the depressive 1930s, the US imposed tarrifs and virtually cut off trade with other countries to give its own industries a chance to mature and survive that depression. If we look at how the DR is being treated right now under this "mini depression" the DR is going through right now, if the DR was to take the US footsteps, the DR would have to ignore any free-trade agreements for the sake of its industries.
However, I did saw Bush the other day on C-Span (via Satelite) who clearly said that "America has open up its borders to foreign imports, now the rest of the world must open up theirs. If they don't want to, we pressure them to open up because we have open up ours", more or less that is what he said in similar words to those. So, basically even if the DR was to follow the US footsteps in protecting its economy for the sake of its industries, the DR won't be able to do it because we would be pressure to open anyways. How would that pressure be applied? I don't know, but it would probably be a drying up of economic aid or demanding higher "minimum" payments for the debts the DR owes to the IMF and World Bank or something. '
In short, even if the DR (or any country) wanted to follow the same steps that lead the US to prosperity, we can't because Uncle Sam has some other plans and we (despite being independent) must adhere to his demands with no questioning or face the consequences. Welcome to Free Trade people!