February 5, 1998

NAFTA ... SCHMAFTA ... TAFTA???

The NO! TO APEC Coalition in Vancouver used to say, "You though NAFTA was scary, wait until you hear about APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation!" We know the MAI is "NAFTA on steroids." But what about TAFTA?

For the first time, I read about the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) in the Toronto Globe and Mail's Report on Business section ("Canada on the sidelines as EU, US discuss free trade; Talks continue, but no documents or proposals on the table," February 3, 1998, page B4).

The talks have been happening in Brussels for the past two months between the United States and the European Union. Canada is excluded for now, which is ironic since, according to the article, a Canadian international trade minister first floated the idea in 1995 (Roy MacLaren for you trivia buffs).

One factor at the talks is the desire to give Clinton more leverage in getting "fast track" negotiating authority. The US Congress would be less averse to giving Clinton fast track power on this deal, the reasoning goes, as human rights and environmental concerns would not be an obstacle. Human rights and environmental abuses don't happen in Europe or the US apparently.

[Clinton was recently stymied in getting fast track authority to extend NAFTA to Chile and, eventually, all of the Americas (except for "socialist" Cuba of course) in a grand Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). He was "defeated" (if that's really the word), by a bizarre coalition of mainstream labour, environmental and development groups and right-wing isolationists, xenophobes and bigots like Jesse Helms, Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot. Canada negotiated its own bilateral deal with Chile.]

Another factor is the EU's desire to get new global trade talks going at the World Trade Organization (WTO) dubbed the "Millenium Round." Social-democrat Tony Blair is a leading proponent of the TAFTA idea.

Some editorializing: These "free trade" agreements have nothing to do with deregulation, liberalization or harmonization. They are really just the forced changing of rules and regulations, backed by armies and the security state, to benefit big capital at the expense of the interests -- economic, political, cultural, ecological, social -- of the world's majority. Moreover, the fundamental problem is not with a given "free trade" agreement, but with an ideological socio-econoomic system of which these agreements are just a manifestation. That system is called by various names by various groups and individuals: neo-liberalism, corporate rule, capitalism, imperialism, the beast ...

Let's start avoiding the trap of seeing a given trade agreement (or human rights and environmental abuses) in isolation, and start drawing the broader, substantive conclusions and acting on *them*. It is the capitalist ideology that is the ultimate problem. We should refuse this system and not accomodate ourselves to its reality as some argue (or, more accurately, as some have the comfort to argue).

Until we make this radical shift in focus, our battles against NAFTA, APEC, MAI, FTAA or anything else will be well-intentioned, but ultimately futile.

Just some food for thought. Peace out.

-- Jaggi Singh

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Updated: February 5, 1998