05/04/05 Trade Agreements

Free Trade Agreements The Free Trade Agreements The United States entered into since 1993, of course, has had supporters and critics. I'm Jeff Keane and I'll be back right after this with some interesting and impartial math. In 1993 the United States, Mexico, and Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA. Now the U.S. is negotiating with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic to form CAFTA or the Central American Free Trade Agreement. An article by Alan Guebert in the Western Livestock Reporter puts these trade treaties in real mathematical perspective. Figuring CAFTA's Gross Domestic Product per capita it comes out to $4,500, while the U.S. GDP per capita computes at $38,000. These figures pretty much assure that the U.S. will probably be a CAFTA ag importer and not a CAFTA ag exporter. We have the money to buy products; they don't. Now, these are projected outcomes of the proposed trade agreement, but NAFTA has been in effect for ten years and these are some figures from that agreement. Agricultural exports to Mexico and Canada increased from $11.5 billion to $21.3 billion or an increase of 93%; ag imports from those two countries rose 133% from $15.4 billion to $35.9 billion. Oh Boy! We need more of that kind of a trade policy. I think maybe we need less free trade and more good trade. I'm Jeff Keane. Western Livestock Reporter 4/20/05