|
|
Nebraska Farmers Union |
1305
Plum Street • Lincoln, NE 68502 Contact
John Hansen Office: 402-476-8815, Fax: 402-476-8859, Cell: 402-580-8815 |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 14, 2005 Lincoln, Nebraska
Nebraska
Farmers Union Urges Congress to Vote NO on CAFTA
Lincoln, NE. Nebraska
Farmers Union President John K. Hansen will travel to Washington, D.C., July
18-20 to urge members of the House of Representatives to vote against the
Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
He will participate in a targeted National Farmers Union Fly-In on
CAFTA, which will likely be up for a vote next week.
Hansen will ask
Congressman to honestly look at the stark contrast between the promises made
before trade agreements have been approved for the past thirteen years, with
the actual performance of those trade agreements after they have been implemented. “CAFTA will work just as badly as NAFTA
because the same basic trade negotiating formula was used for both
agreements. No improvements have been
made to the trade negotiating formula in the last twelve years despite the poor
performance of past trade agreements because our Congress continues to
rubberstamp trade agreements brought before them regardless of how badly
previous agreements performed. Congress
needs to put their foot down, and tell our trade negotiators they must do
better, and that changes in trade policy must be made. That means Congress must reject CAFTA in
order to force new and better ideas into the mix,” Hansen said.
Hansen said, “The
collapse of the balance of ag trade from a positive $24.7 billion in 1996 to a
projected zero by the end of 2005 should cause alarms to go off everywhere in
the ag community. Not only has our
balance of ag collapsed, but so has the value of our top six ag
commodities. Our nation’s farmers have
received $13.94 billion per year less on average since 1996 for their corn,
wheat, soybeans, grain sorghum, cotton, and rice crops. Our trade policy has directly caused the
collapse of our domestic prices, making farmers more, not less dependent on the
government for the necessary financial support to stay in business. At a time when farmers depend on decoupled
income transfers for nearly half of their farm family net incomes, President
Bush promises to give away our domestic income supports to our ag producers at the
recent G8 conference in England without doing or saying anything to improve
domestic crop prices and reduce the need for the subsidies in the first
place. That would amount to an economic
blood bath for family farmers and rural communities,” Hansen said.
The U.S. Senate
recently approved CAFTA by a 54-45 vote, the slimmest margin of victory for a
trade agreement in recent history. The Senate’s narrow approval of CAFTA
reflects the lack of support this policy has in the countryside. The amendment will likely come to a final
vote on the House floor by the end of the month and passage may be dependent on
just a few votes.
Farmers Union
maintains that CAFTA is a continuation of failed trade policies of the past.
Its benefits to ag producers have been dramatically oversold. CAFTA not only encourages a race to the bottom for producer
prices, it ignores major issues that distort fair trade such as labor,
environmental regulations and currency.
Hansen encouraged everyone to call their House of Representatives to ask
them to vote against CAFTA. “ We are
particularly alarmed about the damage CAFTA may cause our Nebraska sugar and
ethanol industries. Both will become
vulnerable because of the ability of foreign competitors to use agreements with
CAFTA countries to unfairly access and dump into US markets,” Hansen concluded.
-30-