| Cafta foes plot to kill pact Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2003/12/09/rtr1175236.htmlhttp://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2003/12/09/rtr1175236.html
As agreement nears, CAFTA foes plot to kill pact Reuters, 12.09.03, 5:32 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the Bush administration scrambled to finish a free trade agreement with five Central American countries, critics of the proposed deal geared up Tuesday to defeat it in Congress next year.
Michigan Rep. Sander Levin, a Democratic lawmaker who serves on a powerful House subcommittee on trade, told reporters the U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, "will not pass in 2004" unless the pact contains stronger protections for workers.
"I'm here to say to the administration 'turn it around or it will be turned down,"' Levin said at a news conference with labor, farm, environmental, religious and human rights groups opposed to the pact.
The White House hopes to wrap up negotiations on CAFTA Friday, although the talks could spill over into next week.
The deal would create a free trade zone between the United States and five Central American countries -- Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua -- similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico.
The Bush administration says the pact would support economic development and democracy in Central America by locking in favorable access to the huge U.S. market.
Thea Lee, trade policy specialist for the AFL-CIO labor alliance, said her organization planned an all-out campaign to defeat CAFTA, which she described as a "hoax on the people of the United States and ... the people of Central America."
She said the White House was pursuing an agenda aimed at improving business conditions for large corporations operating in Central America, "while trading away American jobs" to countries where wages are much lower.
Bush officials argue the Central American countries have good labor laws, but need more resources to enforce them.
HIV/AIDS drug activists staged a demonstration at a downtown Washington hotel where the negotiations were being held to express concern that tougher patent rules under the pact would make it more difficult for poor people in the region to have access to life-saving medicine.
Several activists were ejected from the hotel, where they tried to hang a banner that read "Bush's CAFTA equals death for people with AIDS."
Rep. Jim Kolbe, an Arizona Republican who supports CAFTA, told Reuters that organized labor's strong opposition to the pact would it make it tougher to pass than recent free trade agreements with Chile and Singapore.
But he said it would be a mistake for the White House to delay sending the agreement to Congress until after the 2004 presidential and congressional elections.
Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service
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