Letter to the Editor: Championing the Free Trade Area of America

By ALFRED BROCK Canton
Mich.

Editor,
Mr. Bush is championing something called the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
It follows along in the same footsteps as NAFTA and CAFTA and goes even further.
Many of the agreements in the trade arrangements would bring a lot of money to certain specialized industries – like computers for instance – of course, many of those computers that will be shipped under these trade agreements from the United States are made in Communist China – so don’t expect a check in the mail if Bush gets his way.
Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics (a non-partisan ‘think-tank’ that thinks mostly for Republicans), said the FTAA should be seen as more than just a way to boost sales of computers and airplanes. He said trade agreements could be used to promote good governance, strengthen the courts and other democratic institutions and encourage cooperation on large regional infrastructure projects.
“The foreign policy side of the story is quite important,” he said, “and one of the major reasons we’re expending these efforts.”
In George Bush’s world it is necessary for us to become less like ourselves in order to succeed. In his world Americans aren’t good enough the way we are. We must be repackaged, reformed, restyled and put into styrofoam carriers and sent away to be rebuilt. We no longer make anything and the only thing exportable is our jobs.
In his world it is by being less ourselves that we will force others to be more like us.