Election Blog Series - Trade: What You Didn’t Hear on the Campaign Trail

By Witness for Peace Nicaragua Team

According to U.S. embassy's interpretation of macroeconomic figures, Nicaragua is one of the countries that has benefited most from free trade agreements (FTAs.) Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Nicaragua grew by 91% in 2011 and the GDP real growth rate has increased from -1.5 in 2009 to 4.7 in 2011. Nicaragua seems to be thriving. Taking a nuanced look at these numbers, however, the effects of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) on the Nicaraguan economy are not so clear-cut. Although exports have increased in various sectors, the cited 70% growth in exports between 2005 and 2010, for example, may be more related the increase of the price of gold on the world market than the influence of CAFTA. When talking to those employed by the new jobs CAFTA created, though they appreciate the employment, many cite low pay, long hours, and unhealthy conditions as negatively affecting their lives and their communities. The average wage in a maquila or Free Trade Zone is only between 37 and 52% of a Nicaraguan living wage, and even according to the Director of Hygiene and Safety at the Nicaraguan Ministry of Labor, the greatest problem is lack of education for workers regarding health, hygiene, and the use of protective equipment.

Not only have these agreements hurt workers abroad but they have also failed to meet the promises made to U.S. American workers that they would increase U.S. exports and create jobs domestically.

Rhetoric

President Obama has, at times, opposed the template for Free Trade Agreements utilized since the creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. During the 2008 campaign, Obama shared his beliefs that global trade is only unsustainable when it favors corporations and the wealthy, and that trade agreements must put in place safety nets for the workers who suffer under globalization’s race to the bottom.  He voted against CAFTA and has insisted that he would only support trade agreements with strong labor, safety, and environmental standards.  In practice, however,  Obama’s policies have not only  sustained traditional, Bush-era trade agreements, but have expanded them.

In his 2011 State of the Union Address, President Obama released his plan to double U.S. exports by 2014, “because the more we export, the more jobs we create here at home.” The cornerstone of this plan was the ratification of FTAs with Korea, Colombia and Panama that were signed during Bush presidency. The South Korea agreement, he said, would create 70,000 jobs, and the deals would “keep faith with American workers and promote American jobs. “

Reality

Department of Commerce trade data, however, report exports to these countries decreasing during the past year. Though imports from Korea and Colombia have skyrocketed, the US.-Korea trade deficit has soared by 34%, costing between 15,000-17,000 U.S. jobs. Obama’s trade agreements have not lived up to his declaration that “trade is going to be reciprocal…it's not just going to be a one-way street.”An increase in imports from countries like Korea, Colombia and Panama, however, is not a good indicator of well-dispersed growth within these countries.

The Colombia FTA turns a blind eye towards egregious labor rights violations in that country, where more union leaders were assassinated in 2010 than in the rest of the world combined. The deal puts patents on traditional medicinal knowledge and natural resources; and it pushes Colombia to lower the minimum wage and remove or reduce guarantees for overtime pay, collective bargaining and worker’s compensation. Witness for Peace Colombia has closely followed the story of injured former GM workers who are pleading with the U.S. to enforce the safety and labor standards put in place by the 2011 Labor Action Plan between the Colombian and U.S. governments. Not only has the Obama administration ratified free trade agreements inked by Bush, but it is also working on a new kind of mega-free trade agreement that will expand the current free trade model and create what could be the biggest free trade deal in history.

Expansion

The Obama Administration is currently negotiating this massive international trade pact called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), behind closed doors with at least 11 other countries. The text of the agreement has not been released, but it is clear that it will be closely modeled on past FTAs. Despite the secrecy behind the negotiation of the TPP, various chapters have been leaked and show extreme financial industry deregulation, patent expansion laws, and support for huge pharmaceutical companies.  These chapters do not address consumer safety, environmental issues, or the concerns of organized labor.

Countries besides the U.S. mentioned in the foreign policy debate

Future

During this election season, where job creation has been the focal point of the debate, both candidates have continued to tout free trade. Although Obama avoided any explicit mention of Latin America during the debates, he did brag about the FTAs passed during this term, stating that they "are helping us to double our exports and sell more American products around the world."

Romney supported these new free trade agreements and named expanding free trade agreements the second pillar of his economic plan. He scolded Obama for not moving on these trade deals faster, and cited the huge “opportunity” Latin America could be as a trading partner for the U.S.

The few details Governor Romney has provided as to how investment in Latin America would rejuvenate the U.S. economy indicate a very flawed model. The U.S. already has trade deals with most Latin American countries, excluding only a few countries with strong economies like Venezuela and Brazil.  As Romney has expressed no interest in working with recently re-elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Brazil is basically the only country he must have in mind to support this essential pillar of his plan. Brazil, however, has expressed no interest in allowing the kind of deregulation stipulated by U.S. trade agreements. Observing Mexico who under NAFTA has grown just over 1 percent per annum in per capita terms, Brazil has been exceedingly better off, growing steadily throughout the past decade and relying heavily on China for trade. China, unlike the United States, does not require deregulation as a prerequisite for making trade deals.  Unless the future president changes the current model for trade agreements with Latin American countries, we will not succeed in forging healthy trade relationships.

Opposition

Though the two major party candidates in this year’s election have failed to break from the free trade mold, the often-ignored third party candidates have made bold statements on free trade. During the third party debate on foreign relations, Green Party candidate Jill Stein said, “We need to get to free trade which is fair, not just free for corporations, and expensive and devastating for people and the environment and workers. We need truly fair trade agreements.” Justice Party candidate Rocky Anderson talked about the horrible conditions found in some Free Trade Zones: “this is the kind of inhumane treatment of foreign workers that our federal government, through these trade agreements, are [sic] helping to foster. It has got to come to an end.” Both of these third party candidates argue that we must reform existing agreements and find a better and more just trade template.

Many of our representatives in both the House and Senate have also come to oppose free trade agreements. Two-thirds of Democrats in the House opposed the Korea FTA, and 82% opposed the Colombia FTA. The opposition to the Colombia FTA constituted the largest percentage of Democrats to ever vote against a Democratic president on trade. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is therefore being written behind closed doors, and is on the Fast Track past Congress, so as to not face opposition there.

U.S. trade policies can be written with high labor, human rights, and environmental standards, but only if we hold the government accountable for doing so. The Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act was introduced in 2010, and pledged to do just that. The bill was introduced with 106 initial co-sponsors, but was held up in committee.

Polls show that the majority of Democratic, Republican, and independent voters oppose NAFTA-style trade agreements. We must expose new trade agreements like the TPP to the public, encouraging civil society to pressure the government to reform old trade policies, stop the creation of new mega-agreements, and support bills like the TRADE Act.  

Election Blog Series - Honduras: Why U.S. Policy Needs a Re-Set

-by Witness for Peace Honduras/Nicaragua Team

Why U.S. Policy in Honduras Needs a Re-Set

Although neither candidate mentioned Honduras in the last presidential debate on foreign policy, Mitt Romney has cited the Obama administration’s reaction to the coup in Honduras as an example marking Barack Obama's failure in Latin American policy.

He is not alone in criticizing the Obama administration’s response to the 2009 coup in Honduras. For reasons starkly different than Romney's, ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Rep. Howard Berman, wrote in a recent letter to Secretary Clinton: “U.S. policy in Honduras needs a re-set.” The current policies overlook the human rights crisis that has erupted in Honduras over the past few years. Out of concern for the alarming rate of human rights abuses and repression, almost 100 members of Congress have called for a suspension of U.S. military aid.

The example of Honduras can say a lot about the presidential candidates’ positions on Latin America. Historically the United States has intervened heavily in Honduras. The former "banana republic" played a key role in Reagan’s Cold War-driven mission to crush revolutionary movements in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1980s by providing a haven for U.S.-funded military operations.  More recently it was brought to the international radar when the Honduran military ousted democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, 2009.

So, what do the two major party candidates have to say about the Honduran coup d’état and human rights crisis?

Obama:

The Obama administration provided a lukewarm response to the 2009 coup. While Obama condemned the coup and called it illegal, the State Department avoided using the term “military coup” in order to maintain greater control over its funding to Honduras. As negotiations about Zelaya’s return to Honduras dragged out, the U.S. government stated it would recognize elections even if Zelaya were not returned beforehand-- which is exactly what it did.

The 2009 elections in Honduras were heavily boycotted by civil society, and well-respected election observation bodies like the E.U. and the Carter Center refused to participate. In the weeks leading up to the elections, the coup regime cracked down of freedom of speech and assembly. Resistance members were detained and beaten by security forces.  While the overwhelming majority of Latin American countries rejected the elections, the U.S. immediately recognized them as free and fair, and reinstated military and police aid soon after the inauguration of Porfirio Lobo Sosa.

Obama was left with a difficult legacy from the Bush years. He attempted to step back from the military interventions and “nation-building” under the Bush era. Obama promised that his foreign policy would re-focus on diplomacy and working within the international community. 

However, in the aftermath of the Honduran coup, the ambivalent U.S. response diverged greatly from other countries in the hemisphere that were calling for Zelaya’s unconditional return and a rejection of the dubious elections. Leaders from other countries that make up the Organization of American States were critical of the U.S.’ position.

In response to criticism that the administration didn’t take a strong enough stance in Honduras, Obama responded:

 “The same critics who say that the United States has not intervened enough in Honduras are the same people who say that we're always intervening and the Yankees need to get out of Latin America. You can't have it both ways.”

Rhetorically, the U.S. did take a step back.  In practice, the U.S. has intervened. Three years later, Honduras is becoming the newest epicenter for the War on Drugs. The U.S. has focused its attention on training and equipping the Honduran police and military, as narco-trafficking has been somewhat pushed from Colombia and Mexico into Central America. In addition, the U.S. has plans to increase military bases in Honduras. The Pentagon increased its contract spending in Honduras to $53.8 million in Fiscal Year 2011, up by 71% from the previous year.

For Hondurans involved in the opposition movement against the coup and post-coup governments, the increased presence of military and police does not make them feel safer. In the words of a member of a Garífuna community that has seen increased military and police presence: “It actually creates fear. It is destroying our communities.” Many indigenous and Afro-indigenous communities as well as small farmers are in the midst of land disputes with large landowners that supported the military coup. They witness collaboration between state forces and private security guards to harass, repress and even murder community members in disputed territories.

From the millions given in security assistance and construction of military bases, to the presence of embedded U.S. officials in Honduran agencies, the U.S. has clearly taken a position.

Romney:

While Obama’s administration has failed to get Honduras policy right, Romney would bring us even further backwards. Romney’s position on Latin America is full of Manifest Destiny and Monroe Doctrine discourse that also borders on invoking Cold War-era warnings of socialism creeping in from our Latin American neighbors.

Romney’s campaign states:

“[Obama] has allowed the march of authoritarianism to go unchecked. In some cases, he has actually encouraged it, as when he publicly backed former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya—a Hugo Chavez ally—despite Zelaya’s unconstitutional attempt to extend his term as president in defiance of the Honduran Supreme Court and legislature.”

Romney’s characterization of the coup misrepresents the facts. Leading up to the coup, Zelaya was promoting a non-binding referendum asking Hondurans whether they wanted include a ballot measure in the upcoming elections that would allow them to vote for an assembly to reform the constitution. The spin perpetuated in U.S. media painted Zelaya in a similar way that Romney has- that he was trying to stay in power indefinitely, thereby insinuating or stating that that warranted the illegal coup. In reality, if Zelaya were hoping to change the constitution so that he could have had another term as president, he was many steps removed.  After the coup, the resistance movement collected 1,250,000 signatures in support of a national constitutional assembly.

If Zelaya were authoritarian, as Romney believes, what does that make the U.S.-trained military generals who kidnapped Zelaya from his home and wrecked havoc on civilian protests? What does that make the Lobo administration, which took power under highly-contested elections and has done little to change the pattern of repression? 

Romney’s response to Obama’s policies grossly misses the mark and does not discuss the realities of Obama’s policies in Honduras. If Honduras is an example of how Obama and Romney approach Latin American policy, one thing is clear: no matter who wins the elections on November 6^th, the U.S. needs to drastically change its course. The War on Drugs and militarization in Latin America is a human rights disaster throughout the region.

Join the voices calling for change now! Click here to send a letter to your Senator and Representative asking them to support real change in Honduras policy that promotes human rights and an end to the militarized approach to the War on Drugs.

Liberating Hope: Series on Caravan of Central American Families in Search of Disappeared Migrants

Departing Honduras (Part 2)

By: Elizabeth Perkins

“We can have 100 children, but one can’t take the place of another,” said one of the Honduran mothers participating in the “Caravan of Central American Mothers in Search of their Disappeared Children in Mexico” during a press conference in Tegucigalpa on Thursday. Thirteen Hondurans, mainly mothers searching for their children, will participate in the caravan this year. The entire caravan is hosted by the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement (link to their website in Spanish) and includes 60 people from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala. Starting in Mexico on Monday, October 15, and leaving that country November 3, the caravan will cover some 4,600 kilometers through 14 states and 23 towns in the migrant route.

Mothers at the press conference Thursday. Photo courtesy of PMH.

The Ministry of Human Migration (Pastoral de Movilidad Humana, PMH), the national organization organizing the Honduran portion, got involved with the caravan in 2008, but it originally began in 2000 through the efforts of the Committee of Families of Disappeared Migrants of Progreso (COFAMIPRO), explained Lidia Mara Silva de Souza of PMH. Over time they have added groups from other Central American countries and their route has changed as migrant’s entry points into Mexico have changed. In 2011 they began entering the country through Tobasco. Typically, one year the members of the caravan begin a search for individuals and the following year family members are reunited. This year there are three migrants from Honduras who will be reunited with their families on the caravan.

The majority of Hondurans on the caravan come from the town of Progreso through the organization COFAMIPRO. I was able to speak with some of those leaving with the caravan before the press conference.

Photos of disappeared family members. Photo courtesy of PMH.

Justina’s son has been gone since 2001. He left because there it is very difficult to find work in Honduras. His mother says that he was after the “American dream.”

Dorca’s son has been gone for 10 years. He also left looking to better his financial situation. “In the United States there is opportunity. Here in Honduras even if you have a degree there are no opportunities,” she said. Many of the other women I spoke with cited poverty at home as the reason their family member left. They went north in search of financial opportunities that would allow them to aid their families in Honduras. Carlos from Choluteca carries 51 photos of families in his area who’ve asked them to look for their family members.

 
One of the major challenges for these families is the lack of search mechanisms they have access to. Silva de Souza spoke of an Argentine group working to identify bodies of migrants recently discovered in Mexico. The problem, she says, is that when authorities bury unidentified migrants they document no forensic evidence and often bury them in mass graves (in some cases with animals), making it even more difficult to identify individual remains. She says the team also takes blood samples from family members searching for loved ones in an effort to match remains. Silva de Souza cites a need for laws that create search mechanisms so families looking for disappeared migrants have a place to at least begin to look. She shared that the International Red Cross has begun talking with governments in Central America and Mexico to encourage the creation of such legislation.
 

Sociologist Ricardo Puerta talked about the larger issues behind the caravan. According to Puerta, Honduras has little cause to want change in immigration policies because the country’s economy depends heavily on remittances. Honduras receives US$2.8 billion annually in remittances. “It is an industry,” he said. Because of this, Honduras has a “default immigration policy.” Working to change U.S. immigration policy, he commented, is much more effective. “There is a structural problem in the economies of developed countries. They have to fill certain jobs with migrants,” he said. “The U.S. cannot expel 12 million immigrants all at once. The economy needs these people. Migrant workers are needed because they do work that U.S. citizens will not do.” He added that migrants have the financial incentive of the minimum wage in the U.S. being 15 times what it is in Honduras. He shared that of the 12 million immigrants that are currently in the U.S. 400,000 of those are Honduran. “The cruelest thing is the separation of families,” he added.

The problem of families separating goes even deeper. Corporate-driven trade agreements like DR-CAFTA that significantly reduce viable work opportunities in Central America drive people in large numbers to look for work elsewhere; work that will allow them to support their families at home in places like Honduras.

These issues are all under the surface of this caravan. The participants are simply looking to reunite their families. “You are the protagonists of your own story,” they were told at the end of the press conference. Many of the women echoed this saying they can’t sit still and cry and despair. Their message was one of hope. Some of the women who will leave with the caravan have found their children after looking for years. One of these has been searching since 1999 and in 2010 found her son in Mexico. She continues working with the caravan to support the others who go looking for their loved ones.

The Nicaraguan part of the caravan will met the Honduran group in Tegucigalpa on Friday and continued on to collect participants in El Salvador and Guatemala before following the route that many of their family members took into Mexico. We plan to speak them upon their return in November.

The caravan's route over the weekend on their way to Mexico.