If anyone is wondering why people continue to show up at the Mexican border the excerpt below is a good summary from Public Citizen, Eyes on Trade. You cannot destroy the livelihoods of masses of people and then expect them just to throw up their hands and say you win. Why does the United States choose to ship food to people who already are producing their own food without the massive use of chemicals required by Agribusiness here? Money--every cross-border trade has to be financed. The psychosis of the whole process is revealed by people screaming to shoot or bomb the people trying to get away from a situation created by the very people that now want to kill them at the border. How has CAFTA led to displacement and migration? Under CAFTA, family farmers in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala have been inundated with subsidized agricultural imports – mainly grains – from U.S. agribusinesses. Agricultural imports from the United States in those three CAFTA countries have risen 78 percent since the deal went into effect. While agricultural exports to Central America represent a small slice of U.S. agricultural corporations’ business, they present a large threat to the livelihoods of small-scale Central American farmers who cannot compete with highly subsidized and mechanized U.S. firms. When Mexico experienced a similar surge in agricultural imports under NAFTA, more than 2 million Mexican farmers and agricultural workers lost their livelihoods and migration to the United States doubled. Here is a link to the whole article: citizen.typepad/eyesontrade/2014/08/central-america-crisis-belies-caftas-empty-promises.html
Posted on: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 20:33:16 +0000
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