Pass the Peruvian F.T.A.
Editorial from The New York Times
Congressional Democrats took their time, but more than a year after it was originally signed, the free trade agreement between the United States and Peru is finally due for a vote in the House of Representatives today.
Democrats should vote for it. While the agreement is expected to pass on the strength of a majority of Republican votes, it would be a pity if Democratic leaders were not able to muster a substantial number of votes in favor of a deal they played such a large role in making — one that is likely to boost American jobs and help relations with an ally in a challenging region of the world.
The Peruvian agreement has had a tortuous journey, entangled in the growing Democratic hostility toward trade. Peru had to amend the original deal to add commitments on labor rights and the environment. Charles Rangel, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, had to work hard to bring some of his colleagues on board.
Despite these efforts, some estimates put Democratic support at less than 100 votes.
Democrats are right to worry about the stagnation of workers’ wages and to be concerned about those who lose their jobs because of increased competition from cheaper labor overseas. But these problems should be addressed through better education and training, a more robust social safety network and more progressive taxation to mitigate the impact of stagnating wages. Throttling trade would hurt more people than it would help.
The Peruvian deal would help expand trade between Peru and the United States, which today stands at about $9 billion. It would give American businesses greater access to Peru’s markets in everything from grains to tractors and other machinery.
Perhaps more important, the agreement would strengthen an essential ally in the combat against illegal narcotics in the Andes and tighten relations with one of the United States’ few remaining friends in South America — where Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez is gaining allies by spreading oil wealth around. In an open letter, all eight living former secretaries of state urged Congress to approve the Peru deal.
There are other trade agreements waiting in the wings with South Korea and Panama, and Congress should approve them. The pending deal with Colombia should also pass once the government of Álvaro Uribe demonstrates progress in bringing to justice the paramilitary leaders guilty of human rights violations and their backers in the Colombian government.
A group of Democratic leaders from the Clinton administration and Congress recently sent a letter to Congressional Democrats pointing out that rejecting the trade agreements signed in Latin America “would set back regional U.S. interests for a generation.”
Their argument also works on a bigger map. It would be a folly for the United States to turn its back on trade. Democrats, who have taken control of Congress and might soon take the White House, should not lose sight of that fact.
This a brief version of the letter I co-wrote to the US Congress and supported by 21 organizations of immigrants advocates, Latino civil rights and faith-based groups that work in Peru.
Carlos A. Quiroz
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The US-Peru Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is a corrupted and anti-democratic deal that should not be approved by the US Congress because the United States can truly spread democracy and freedom by example, not by imposing failed and unfair economic policies that will increase corruption, poverty, unequality and abuse among impoverished nations as Peru. Current Peruvian President Alan Garcia is not a democratic leader, since there are pending cases of human rights abuses and corruption involving his first government. Garcia was reelected in 2006 on a platform against free trade policies and with a promise to renegotiate the FTA. Once elected, he instead visited Bush to request its approval.
This FTA was approved by Peruvian Congress with little national support, in an overnight lame-duck session that ignored 60,000 signatures requesting a national referendum. Eighty percent of Peruvian Congress members who voted for this FTA had already lost their seats in the elections that predated the vote.
In August, President Alan Garcia agreed to issue presidential decrees to improve labor rights in Peru. Yet Peruvian labor leaders argue that this is insufficient because it does not change the labor laws through legislation and it will not guarantee effective enforcement. Peru’s National Labor Law is pending approval since 2001 because of the strong influence that corporations and businesses have over Congress. Peruvians face constant threats to their labor rights including racial discrimination and against union organizers, illegal firings and forced overtime without pay. A new system of fixed-labor contracts and subcontracting radically undermines workers’ rights because it does not guarantee a 44 hour work week or labor standard. Seventy-five percent of Peruvian workers arer in the informal sector and many of the remaining twenty-five percent work for private employment contracting agencies that are not obligated to enforce labor rights. A free trade agreement with Peru should not be approved by the U.S. Congress until legislation is passed by Peruvian Congress, which guarantees compliance with ILO standards and guarantees enforcement.
Agriculture is an integral part of Peru’s economy with nearly a third of the population depending on this sector for their livelihood. In the FTA, the U.S. demands that Peru renounce its rights under the WTO agreements to apply Special Agricultural Safeguards, designed to protect sensitive sectors. The Peruvian National Convention on Agriculture (CONVEAGRO) estimated that hundreds of thousands of Peruvian farmers would be negatively affected by the agreement. The U.S. agricultural subsidies constitutes unfair competition for Peruvian agricultural goods and will impoverish the 700,000 producers of cotton, corn, barley, wheat, oilseeds and dairy products in that country. Considering that only 3% of Peruvian farmers export their products, it’s very likely that as hundreds of thousands of Peruvian small farmers lose their markets, they will be pushed into drug production, or to migrate with their families to already impoverished Peruvian cities, or as undocumented immigrants to countries like the U.S.
Even before the FTA is approved, already foreign mining and natural gas corporations are making huge profits in Peru while leaving behind underpaid workers, pollution and environmental destruction. The Alan Garcia administration has ignored popular protests and strongly supports extractive industries. If this FTA is ratified now by the U.S. Congress, it will send a signal to the Garcia government that its current heavy-handed and anti-public interest policies are supported by the U.S. Congress. It will further perpetuate the perception that the U.S. favors the interests of multinationals over protecting human rights and reducing corruption.
Most Peruvians are of Indigenous and Afro descendant heritage. About 73 percent in Indigenous communities live below the poverty line. This FTA is a threat to indigenous peoples’ heritage and way of life, as it allows agribusiness and pharmaceutical corporations to take over their traditional medicine and nutrition knowledge for profit. Mining, oil and natural gas exploration and extraction would increase dramatically with this FTA, leading to extensive damage to the Peruvian environment, especially the Andes mountains region and the Amazon basin, which is the largest virgin forest on the planet. With this FTA, multinational corporations would have the right to sue Peru’s governments if any attempt to protect the environment would cause those companies to see their profits reduced. This FTA establishes secret trade tribunals, making trade rules more powerful than democratic institutions and domestic laws.
As a result, entire Indigenous communities could be displaced from their lands and pushed into extermination. Therefore, the FTA regulations directly contradict the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recently adopted by the United Nations, which includes the rights to protect their land and natural resources.
Hundreds of thousands of Peruvians will not be able to afford generic medicines because of new patents and data-protection regulations included in this FTA are intended to protect and boost the already outrageous profits of pharmaceutical corporations. This FTA promotes the privatization and deregulation of services such as water, health care and education. At the same time, it protects the interests of multinational corporations benefiting from Peru’s bungled privatization of its social security system at the expense of workers, women, children, senior citizens and the chronically ill.
The FTA with Peru must be rejected and it’s further renegotiation should proceed because it is not fair for most Americans nor most Peruvians, and because it was negotiated ignoring the voice of the people of both the United States and Peru. A free trade agreement with Peru must provide safeguards that will protect vulnerable sectors of Peruvian society, instead of worsening its economic, social and political inequality.
Trade should be used to promote social justice and progress for all, and not just for the benefit of the few rich and powerful. Fair trade is necessary to address poverty and hunger and to promote economic progress and decent living standards, while respecting the UN Declaration of Human Rights and guaranteeing the protection of our planet.